Tree of the Week

Week 16 – Sambucus nigra; Elder

This week I’ve seen the first elders in flower, the late May sun bringing them out in a warm south facing hedgerow.  In this context they are more like a large shrub than a tree, but they can grow to 10 metres in the right conditions. They prefer rich damp soils and often grow on disturbed soils. The form is very variable, sometimes with a main trunk and other stems growing up from the base, or sometimes just multi-stemmed. The flower head is roughly circular, about the size of your spread hand, made up of many tiny white flowers. Smell the flowers to confirm the identification – unsurprisingly the scent is of elderflower cordial, although different specimens seem to yield varying strengths of aroma. Leaves are oval, pointed at the end and with toothed edges and held in opposite pairs along the leaf stalk, with one leaflet at the end. The twigs are bumpy and the bark deeply grooved. The berries will be green ripening to black and used to make wine. A tough and very attractive native.

The Kew website will tell you everything else.

Tree of the Week

Week 15 - Fagus sylvatica; Beech

Couldn't resist it. A personal favourite, Fagus sylvatica is in its prime this week with the intense yet soft green of the new foliage, as ever the stone-grey smooth bark and majestic trunks rising high in to the canopy...I'll have to stop there before I overdo it. It likes a well-drained soil. Autumn colour is a buttery yellow. On a young specimen or clipped hedge the browned leaves will stay on over winter. If you're not sure about identification then look on the ground, and whatever the time of year you are likely to find seed cases, spiny though not sharp like a conker case, and about the size of a Cadbury's mini egg, maybe a bit bigger. Enjoy.

If you want to immerse yourself in the Beech, then read 'Beechcombings' by Richard Mabey, review here.

Tree of the Week

Week 14 – Sorbus aucuparia; Rowan, Mountain Ash

Fresh in to flower now, with rounded white flower heads about the size of your hand but made up of many tiny flowers. They have red berries in Autumn, which are valuable for birds. In a cold winter they will have some Autumn leaf colour too. Useful because of their tolerance of cold winds, small size (usually about 10m) and the fact that they tolerate light, poor soils and dry conditions. The leaves are quite distinctive and a good way to check your identification – they are composite (made up of many small leaflets) with the tooth-edged leaflets held in opposite pairs along the central twig. Other Rowan species and S. Aucuparia varieties are available, with orange, pink, white or yellow berries.

n.b. a close competitor for tree of the week this week was copper beech, their leaves are so newly out that they are green/pink/red all at once and look amazing in Manchester at the time of writing. Copper beech is of course not its proper name, find out why here.

Tree of the Week

Week 13 – Larix decidua; Larch

Chosen this week because of the “new bright green needles combined with distinctive cones” (thanks, Alice) Larch is a great conifer for a number of reasons. As it is deciduous you get the benefit of seasonal change but with the aesthetic qualities of a conifer. The new leaves are held in soft tufts along the twig, interspersed with upright pink female cones which look a bit like tiny pineapples. The  yellow male cones are smaller, drooping down. The twigs are very knobbly, though this is more obvious in winter, and the autumn colour is a bright yellow, often dominating a hillside. They are native to mountainous regions in central Europe and do well in similar terrain here. Form is reliably fairly conical and mature cones are about 3cm long, scaly, egg-shaped and woody. Fast-growing and of course used widely for timber, but currently threatened by Phytophthora ramorum, about which you can read more on the Forestry Commission’swebsite.