What does Pribby look like?

Pribby is a shrub, sometimes used for hedging, with shiny oval evergreen leaves.  In sunlit areas these are small and round.  In gloomier areas such as tropical forests the leaves are larger, less shiny, and longer.

The photo below shows the plant growing on a sunny bank.  The one below shows it growing in a forested area.

A pribby shrub on the margins of someone’s backyard

Pribby growing in shaded forest on the Dry Waterfall Trail

Pribby flowers

The flowers are unusual.  They are four-petalled and very small.  They look leathery and have a thick corolla.  This is variable in colour and can be pale orange through pink.  On closer examination, the pink flush seems to come from areas of magenta pigmentation on the underside of the petals.  The pigment seems to stop abruptly and consists of tiny discrete spots of colour.  This is pronounced at the junction of the petal and the long corolla tube.

Sketch of one Pribby flower from different angles

There are four cream stamens within the corolla tube which become darker brown with age.  The calyx stands slightly proud of the base of the corolla tube and has four lanceolate teeth.

It flowers throughout the year.

Pribby leaves

Leaves are green and very shiny.  They grow in a tight whorl of four around the central stem. In the specimen I examined they were clustered together and overlapping one another.

Photo of Pribby growing near Elvis Gerald’s garden

Leaves have very short stalks, and the shine and thickness of the leaves make it hard to see the network of veins clearly.  The tips of shoots have brighter green leaves.  Those lower down are a darker shade.

Veins on one leaf

Why is Pribby special?

The first mention of Pribby in European records occurs in 1798, in Eclogae americanae, by Martin Vahl.  It didn’t create much of a stir until after the eruption of the Souffriere hills in 1995 – 20i0.  The amount of habitat lost to ash fall and pyroclastic flows suddenly mean this unassuming plant had been lost to science.  No-one knew where it grew anymore, or even if it grew anymore.

Then in 2006 Kew botanists, funded by UKOTCF visited Montserrat’s Centre Hills area and the abandoned Forestry department and unearthed herbarium specimens thought to be destroyed in the volcano.  Amongst these was one of Pribby, and this included location information.  Following this discovery, the botanists were helped by local forestry experts, found Pribby still growing on the same site, and soon discovered several other places where it grows.

Photo showing variation between flower colours

Seeds have been collected, and the plant is grown at Kew Gardens.  Its seeds are stored in Kew’s Millenium Seed Bank, and the Montserrat National Trust propagate plants and educate the public about its’ importance.

What are the uses of Pribby?

Pribby grows thickly in sunny areas, and can be used as hedging.  At Montserrat’s botanic gardens, a Pribby demonstration hedge is being trialled to keep out populations of feral goats and domestic animals, and to see how it fares as a native hedging plant.  It’s also great for pollinating insects as it flowers year round.

My sketchbook study

What are the threats to Pribby?

Despite it’s re-discovery, Pribby is still considered critically endangered and is on the ICUN’s red list.

Threats include habitat loss to possible further volcanic activity, invasive weeds such as the Blackberry and Australian Pine Casuarina equisetifolia, and grazing by feral goats and sheep.  Most of the populations are outside of the protected Centre hills reserve.

Conclusion

I saw several populations of Pribby during my stay on Montserrat.  I have become a little besotted by its’ charming combination of endangered status and unassuming growth habit.  I’m keen to revisit the Pribby and illustrate the fruit.  Perhaps I can work up a more detailed and polished illustration?

Until then, if you’re as fascinated by Pribby as I am, why not donate to the Conservation efforts on Montserrat being run by UKOTCF and the Montserrat National Trust?  It’s not every day you can help save a critically endangered hedging plant with tiny orange flowers and pretty shiny leaves, now is it?

Sketch from my botanical notebook

The post Pribby: A Montserrat endemic appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Drawing plants you’ve never seen

I am often asked to illustrate species which I have never seen in the flesh.  It’s harder than drawing from life, but with photo and online reference it is possible.  For more on this see my blog on working from photo reference).

Many of the plants illustrated for the booklet were new to me, or fruits that I had never seen growing in situ.  One of the things I was keen to do whilst on the island was to find as many of these plants as I could, and compare them to my illustrations.  It’s nerve wracking, but important.  If there are big discrepancies then the illustrations need to be done again and improved.

Fruit trees: Soursop Annona muricata

It didn’t take long to recognize some of the plants I’d illustrated.  On a guided nature hike, I was shown the soursop fruit.

Soursop fruit

I recognized it from my illustration, which is always a good sign.  Having struggled with the pattern of the spines on the fruit’s skin, it was a relief to see that the geometry was similar to my illustration.  I couldn’t reach the fruit, but was glad when our guide told me that yes, the flesh was indeed a creamy white colour.

Detail: Fruit of the Soursop

The tree wasn’t in flower, so I have to hope that the photos I amassed and worked from were accurate.

Soursop leaves are gratifyingly similar to those I’d illustrated, and to many other leaves from the list.  Smooth, glossy, dark green with simple margins.

Soursop

Fruit trees: Guava Psidium guajava

I found my Guava tree in Elvis Gerald’s garden (click here for more on this extraordinary Caribbean garden).  I have seen and eaten guava before, but never noticed the tree it grows on.

Guava growing in Elvis’s garden

The fruit is the same colours as my illustration, if a touch rounder.  I didn’t cut open the fruit to see if the flesh is the same pink colour I showed, that would have been rude.

The distinctive lateral veins on the leaves are clear.  I intentionally toned them down a little when I added colour to my painting, I now wish I’d kept them starker.

My illustration of Guava

The blossom is a bit less convincing.  Although the basic colour and shape is right, in reality there are a lot more stamens than I included in my illustration.  The flower is passable, but not a good representation.

Guava flower

Trees: Trumpet bush Cecropia peltata

Another plant we were shown by our natural history guide was the Trumpet bush.  The leaves are the right shape, and the way they grow from the trunk feels right too.

Trumpet bush on the Dry Waterfall trail

What amazes me is the sheer size of each leaf.  They are enormous!  Luckily the scale doesn’t matter in my illustrations, but I am sure I have drawn them too small.

My illustration of the Trumpet bush

The other surprise is how very white the underside of each leaf is.  Yes, I illustrated the leaves as pale below.  But if I were to repeat the illustration I would make them closer to white than to pale green.

Underside of Trumpet bush leaf

Pung Coolie Momordica charantia

In the car park near our trail head, our guide Loydie pointed out the Pung coolie, growing in the grass.

This plant surprised me by being far smaller than I’d imagined.

The tendrils and pale yellow petals are the same, but I’d envisioned it as having flowers the size of courgette flowers, not these far smaller blossoms, only a few cm across.

Pung coolie or Bitter melon

It looks very similar to my illustration, irrelevant of size.  Saying that, the specimen I saw wasn’t bearing fruit, so I can only hope these are depicted correctly.

My illustration of Pung coolie

Blue vervain or porterweed Stachytarpheta jamaicensis

Driving back from the walk, I spied some spindly blue flowers.  I was really pleased to see them, all along the roadside verges were lots of Blue porterweed plants.

Photo of Blue porterweed

Flowers fell from the spikes almost as soon as I picked them, but they stayed long enough for me to realise the shapes I’d drawn were correct, even if the shade of blue I used was not quite purple enough.  I think my leaves should have been a touch smaller and a little shinier.

My illustration of Blue vervain

Aloe vera

This plant grows everywhere in Montserrat, along road sides, and more prolifically where it’s a bit drier.

I know the illustration is more or less ok because I have an Aloe vera in a pot here at home.  However, it’s good to see that the shade of green is pretty well matched to the wild plant.  As I didn’t see one in flower, I have to keep my fingers crossed that the inflorescence is correct.

My Aloe vera

Love vine

Driving up Jack Boy Hill, about a mile up the road, suddenly everything seems to be strewn with orange tangles of thread.

Love vine on an Acacia

I’m afraid I shouted out in joy when I realised I was driving past thick nests of Love vine.  This was particularly satisfying as I’d struggled to understand the nature of the plant and the colour scheme when illustrating it.

My illustration of Love vine

Seeing it grow, I realise it grows like Dodder Cuscata in the UK.  And looking closely, the colours on individual tendrils do indeed fade from light green through yellow to a rich orange.  This plant was my happiest comparison.

Resurrection fern Pleopeltis or Polypodium polypodioides

The last plant I saw growing that I remembered to take a photo of was the Resurrection fern.

This was on trees and tree trunks in the Mezoic wet forest areas.  The sori do indeed leave prominent marginal bumps on the leaves, and the central stem is almost as hairy as I showed it (but less purple).

Photo of Resurrection fern

What I got wrong is that on the plants I saw growing, very few had mature sori pointing upward.  This could have been chance, or perhaps it’s the way the plant grows.  I think the leaves I illustrated could have been a richer and shinier green.  Saying that, the plant is recognisable and that’s the acid test.

My illustration of the fern

Other plants I saw…and failed to photograph

Unfortunately, I failed to take photos of the Sensitive plant Mimosa pudica, West Indian Bay leaf Pimenta racemosa, or Lemongrass.  I ate leaves of the latter two in Elvis’s garden, so it’s not as if I didn’t have the chance to examine the plant where it grew.

Mimosa

My biggest regret is not taking photos of the very beautiful Bush tea or Quickstick Gliricidia sepium tree.  These were in full bloom, dotting the wooded hillside with delicate pink tree crowns.  I picked some of the flowers, and even had them in a jar on the table.  But I failed to draw them from life or to photograph them.

Bush tea tree

Ah well, I’ll just have to go back next year….

Conclusion

On the whole, I’m pleased with how closely my illustrations tally with the plants I saw growing in the wild in Montserrat.  Inevitably there’s some discrepancy of scale.  Luckily this doesn’t matter in drawings.  Colours are occasionally slightly different.  I didn’t get to see every plant I’ve illustrated, nor see every life stage of each plant.

What I really love is being able to touch the growing plants, rotate them, smell their leaves and flowers.  Yes, I can work from photographs and picture reference.  But the experience is much more exciting and far easier if you’re able to hold the plant in your hand as you paint.

The post Medicinal plants of Montserrat – Illustrations vs Reality appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Some months ago I worked on a diagram of an idealised garden which grew flowers, fruit, herbs, and vegetables all year round.  The most unusual thing about this job is that the garden was on the island of Montserrat, in the Caribbean.

As I drew up my pencil rough, including all the species listed as growing on this plot of land, I wondered how on earth anyone could ever be expected to have such a wide variety of plants in one garden.  Little did I know then, I was soon to see the garden in real life.

Annotated pencil rough of the Montserrat Garden plan

Elvis Gerald’s Garden

One of the many highlights of my recent work trip to Montserrat (take a look at my blog Montserrat – Working in Paradise for more) was visiting Elvis’s garden.

Elvis Gerald is a remarkable and extremely knowledgeable man.  Working in Montserrat’s Department of Agriculture, for RSPB, liaising with Montserrat National Trust and responsible for ensuring imported fruit and vegetables don’t carry harmful invasive species; he is also a very busy man.  Which is why it was all the more wonderful to meet him at his home and get a tour of his amazing garden plot.

Elvis Gerald’s garden with entomologist Wolfgang, Catherine Wensink, Jodey Peyton, and Rebecca Machin

Caribbean garden: Temperate orchard

The very first thing I clocked about Elvis’s garden was that it’s on a slope.  I had not even considered this when I was drawing it, and was wondering about the layout.  It made the whole enterprise even more remarkable.  The first area we saw was on a gentle gradient.  The same is not true of areas round the back of the house.

Apple and pear trees aren’t commonly grown in the Caribbean.  They are temperate fruit.  So imagine our surprise to see several varieties of apple, pear and even nectarines thriving.  Elvis shields the tree trunks from scalding by the sun with white paint, and mulches the base of the trees with shredded paper.

Mulching around apple trees with shredded paper

The fruits are protected from pests by being individually bagged, and tinsel and tin foil festoon the trees to dissuade hungry birds.

Pears protected in bags

Between the trees, Elvis grows peppers and chillis.  Pots of herbs and squash plants are dotted around.

Pepper growing in the orchard area.

Grass is allowed to grow to protect the soil, and carefully placed irrigation pipes provide water during drought.  In my diagram I put these in a corner, in reality irrigation tubes stretch the width of the plot.

Diagram of the garden in progress.  Irrigation systems in the bottom right.

Guava, Banana and Papaya

I was thrilled to see a Guava tree growing, complete with blossom.  Although I was pretty happy with the illustration of the guava fruit I did for one of my Montserratian medicinal fruits, I’d been anxious about the blossom.  The flower was not perfect, somewhat lacking in stamens, but it was close enough to earn a small sigh of relief.

Guava Psidium guajava photo and my illustration of blossom

Other tropical fruit trees grew alongside.  There were bananas and plantains.

Elvis’s banana palms, and my diagrammatic ones.

Lots of Papaya grew, with fruits still green.  The lobed leaves, and the way they grow out from the trunk is instantly recognizable.  These trees grow throughout the garden, often on very steep areas.  Some grew alongside pomegranates.

Papaya tree alongside my diagram

As suggested in my species list, there were also Dragon fruit, Figs, Mulberry, and Barbados cherry.

Native species growing in amongst include the Rainfall bush, Gumbo limbo, Noni, Broadleaf and Bay leaf.  The Bay was fascinating.  It’s far larger than our European Bay and has shiny, leathery leaves.  Although the smell is similar, it’s more nuanced.  Elvis uses the leaves for tea and to flavour porridge.

There is also a hedge of Pribby, an endemic species used for hedging.  I hope to do a brief blog on Pribby soon.

West Indian Bay leaf Pimenta racemosa

Cabbages

I love a beautiful cabbage as much as the next person, and have delighted in illustrating them in the past.

Savoy cabbage completed for Rodale Publishing’s “Vegetable Garden Problem Solver”

However, I was not expecting to see some of the most perfect cabbages I’ve ever encountered growing on a steep hill in Montserrat.  Elvis says slugs and snails are not a problem, so the cabbages thrive.  As do the lettuces, salad leaves, seedlings, and other low-lying plants.

Cabbage growing and diagrammatic cabbages

As with the diagram, amongst the cabbage beds, Elvis grows peppers and other plants.  This shields the earth from the hot drying sun, a concept my illustration has failed to capture.

Companion planting is part of Elvis’s armoury.  There are French marigolds and plenty of Tridax daisy Tridax procumbens.  This pretty little plant provides ground cover and is important for pollinators.

Pests

I was grateful that there was netting underfoot in amongst the sweet potatoes, squash and cabbages.  I assumed it was there to stop Elvis from sliding down the hillside as he gardened.  The slope below the house is quite extreme.

No.  It’s there to deter iguana.  These lizards grow to massive sizes, and are the bane of many gardeners on Montserrat.  Tinsel scares off the birds.  Netting shields vegetables from iguana.  Companion planting encourages natural predators of insect pests.  And these are only the pest deterrents I noticed!  I have no doubt that many more are also at play.

Herbs and Spices

Tucked amongst the trees and vegetables are lots of pots of herbs.  Chocolate mint, Cinnamon and Lemon basil, Coriander and Rosemary, thyme and tarragon.

Elvis also grows ginger and turmeric.  I’d not seen turmeric growing before, and was surprised to see how close to the surface the root is.  It reminded me of an iris.

Pots of herbs, Turmeric; and my diagram of coriander, thyme, and ginger growing in pots

Earlier in the day, Elvis has harvested some cucumbers, so we got him to pose outside his back door with one.

Elvis Gerald with home grown cucumber

Dry Garden

It came as something of a surprise when Elvis pointed out that he had a second garden too, further down the hill.  Luckily for us, he was willing to show us around there too.

This garden was flatter, and much drier.  It was rich in fig trees, avocado, and limes.  Montserrat used to be known for its’ lime juice, until scale insects wiped out many of the citrus orchards.  It was sad to see some evidence of these insects on Elvis’s trees, too, although the fruit looked healthy.

Lime

There were lots of sweet potatoes growing.  I was relieved that the unlikely purple trumpet-shaped flowers I’d found in research were indeed the right flowers for a Sweet potato plant.

Sweet potato flowers alongside diagram of the plants growing

Conclusion

We left Elvis’s gardens in awe.  That someone holding down several jobs and no small level of responsibility could also maintain two beautiful and productive gardens was almost alarming.  So much produce, year round.  Unencumbered by long European winters, and only fettered by droughts and animal pests, Elvis has created the sort of garden anyone would be jealous of.

It is also the only time in my life that I have seen reality being more organised and perfect than my idealised diagrams.  Elvis Gerald, I salute you.

Catherine Wensink (UKOTCF), Elvis Gerald, and ecologist Jodey Peyton

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Whilst recently researching the wildflower families, I fell down a fruit-shaped rabbit hole.  And it is because of the amount of variety shown in the fruit of the Rosaceae, or rose family.

Japanese rose Rosa rugosa

For more on what makes a plant a member of the Rosaceae, check out my recent blog Wildflower families: Rosaceae.

Where to start?  There’s a lot of variety, and taking a look at my Fruit variety and terminology blog might help.

Rosaceae Fruit: Aggregate Fruit

Rosaceae fruit are one to two seeded, and often form together into aggregates, or aggregate fruit.  Think of a blackberry or a raspberry.  Each of those little lumps (or drupelets) houses a seed.  They clump together to form what we see as one fruit, although it is an aggregate of many.  Think how many seeds you find when eating one blackberry!

Jersey Post copyright 2027 Jersey bramble Rubus caesarius

If you have time to spare, have a look at my step by step blog on painting a blackberry.

Rosaceae Fruits: Drupes

Some other Rosaceae grow drupes.  A drupe is a fleshy fruit which has a thin skin and grows around a central hard stone.  Inside the stone (or pip, or kernel) is the seed.

Plum Prunus prunus fruit

Plums and cherries are drupes.  In the states, the term “stone fruit” is used.  This refers to any soft fruit with a woody stone, such as apricots and peaches.

Peach Prunus persica with stone (and seed) removed

Rosaceae fruits: Aggregates of Achenes

Some have aggregates of single-seeded achenes.  Some of these have spines which catch onto fur for seed dispersal.  These are actually called awns, and are formed from the persistent remains of the style.

Piri Piri bur Acaena novae-zelandiae seedhead and individual achene with awns

Other examples include Herb bennet, Geum, and Mountain avens.

Water avens Geum rivale showing flower and seed head with awned achenes

Others, like Meadowsweet, twist their achenes together into a spiral.

Potentilla seed heads look a lot like those of the Ranunculaceae family, an assembly of achenes borne in a globe-like arrangement.

Rosaceae Fruit: The Pseudo-fruit (Rosehip)

Rosehips are not made from the carpels of a flower.  The seeds within are formed from carpels, with their thin coats.  But the red or orange fleshy part of a rosehip is called a hypanthium.  It is just a fleshy shell, housing the real fruit, the achenes (formed from carpels), each bearing one seed.  The hypanthium is formed from swollen receptacle flesh.

Japanese Rose Rosa rugosa rosehip cross section

The receptacle is the part of the plant where the flowering parts are attached, not the female flower parts themselves.  Receptacles lie below the flowering structure, and explains why we see that distinctive brown bit at the “bottom” of a rosehip.  They are the remnants of the calyx and other flowering structures, and if you look closely you can sometimes see old stamens.  Which makes that the “top” of the pseudo fruit, I suppose.

Rosehip anatomy diagram

Rosaceae Fruit: The Pome

One of the most commercially important Rosaceae, the apple, carries its’ seeds in a Pome.  A pome is a swelling of the receptacle, not the carpel.  It is built of several hypanthium (enlarged receptacle) which have grown together.

At the centre of this we find the pericarp which contains five to thirteen seeds (it’s commonly known as the apple core), depending on how successful pollination was.

Diagram showing the structure of the Pome (apple)

So next time you eat an apple or a pear, remember that the distinctive brown bit at the “bottom” is the residual flowering parts, specifically the calyx.

Pear sprig with blossom and fruit Pyrus communis

For more on pomes, check out this blog from Where the spruce eats.  To be sure you can tell your pome from your drupe, take a look at this blog from Toronto botanical garden.

Rosaceae Fruit: The Strawberry

The strawberry bears its’ seeds on the outside, and in fact every yellow seed is a strawberry fruit.  The fleshy part (which we eat so cheerily) is made from swollen receptacle tissue, rather like the apple (a pome).

Wild strawberry Fragaria vesca with external fruits and seeds on a swollen receptacle

However, the big difference is that the seeds of the strawberry are on the outside not the inside, and it is the only fruit which does this.  It is therefore not only delicious but also remarkable.

Conclusion

This blog is far from exhaustive, and I have no doubt I could find enough to write an entire blog about the core of an apple.  I hope this serves as an introduction to the variety and fascinating structures of the fruit of the  Rosaceae.

Sketchbook study of the Dog rose Rosa canina

The post Rosaceae Fruit appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This series talks about some common wildflower families.  For basic terminology, look at my  the basics of botany blog, and another on different fruit types.  For more on scientific names, how they work, and why they matter,  look at What’s in a name 1 and part 2.  Take a look at  the other families I’ve looked at so far, the  Ranunulaceae (Buttercups), Caryophyllaceae (Campions), and Brassicaceae (Cabbages)  I hope to add more families over the coming months.

Rock cinquefoil Potentilla rupestris

I know a little about wildflowers,  but I am an amateur, and not a trained botanist.  So although I’ll try and get stuff right, if you see a mistake, please let me know.

Wildflower families: Rosaceae

The Rose family has 107 genera and over 3100 species globally.  Flowers have five or ten petals, and often have an epicalyx (see below).   Leaves have stipules, and tend to be alternate.  There’s a vast array of fruits in this family, from plums and apples to strawberries, Mountain avens with its dry achenes in one head, to Lady’s mantle with a lone seed in a receptacle.  As well as Roses, other Rosaceae garden flowers include Cotoneasters, Pyrocanthus, and Geums.  Our most common fruit crops are Rosaceae, and lots of highly varied wild flowers are in this family, including Cinquefoil, Meadowsweet, and Agrimony.

Entire leaved Cotoneaster Cotoneaster‌ integrifolius and other Cotoneaster species

(For more on telling Cotoneaster species apart, not a fun occupation, please check out my blog).

Rosaceae overview

Plants in this family have alternate leaves with stipules at their base.  A stipule is like a tiny leaf that grows in pairs at the base of a leaf stalk, next to the stem. Flowers have five or ten petals, lots of stamens, and can be solitary or in racemes. The name Rosaceae comes from the Latin for rose, Rosa.  There’s a suggestion that the name is far more ancient than that, possibly dated back to ancient Persia where ornamental roses were first grown.

Copyright Jersey Post: Roses Nostalgia Rosa Nostalgia

Some members of this family reproduce asexually, without seeds.  Strawberries do this with runners, while Raspberries, Blackberries, and some roses put up suckers at some distance from the parent plant.

Barren strawberry Potentilla sterilis showing a runner

Rosaceae Leaves

Rosaceae leaves are often lobed, with toothed or deeply notched margins.  (For more on leaf margins, look at my blog).  Some may be very deeply lobed, like Tormentil.

Tormentil Potentilla erecta

Some Rosaceae have compound leaves made of an array of smaller leaflets rather than simple ones  (For more on simple versus compound leaves check out my blog).  You can tell if a Rosaceae leaf is compound or simple by looking for a stipule.  You’ll only stipules at the base of a leaf, so if you look at a Rosaceae “leaf” and see no stipules, it could well be a leaflet.  Examine a rose leaf (compound, of many leaflets) or a Blackberry (likewise) and use the stipule position to decide where the stalk of the entire leaf (not that of a leaflet) attaches to the plant.  The shape of leaves, if not the size, is pretty consistent across the whole plant.

Agrimony Agrimonia eupatoria clearly showing basal stipules

Stipules can be tiny to really large, smooth to toothed.  Often the stipules can prove confusing as they resemble part of the main leaf.

Rosaceae Flowers

Rosaceae flowers are regular, with radial symmetry.  They have five petals, which tend to overlap, and five to ten sepals which also overlap but mostly do not fuse.

Blossom of Pear Pyrus communis

Some Rosaceae have an epicalyx, a whorl of bracts just below the calyx.  You can see this in the Cinquefoils and the Strawberry.  If you look closely at the green “top” of a strawberry, you can see the sepals, the epicalyx in a circle below them, and you may also see some residual stamens, clinging to the inner edges of the calyx array.  There’s a good blog on this, by The botanist in the kitchen.

Wild strawberry Fragaria vesca showing calyx and epicaylx

Flowers grow in compound clusters at the ends of the stem, known as cymes or racemes.  However, they can also be solitary.

They are bisexual with lots of stamens surrounding one or many free carpels.  The stamens, should you care to examine them, grow in whorls of 5 or more, but this can be really hard to see.  They bend inwards towards the flower.

Individual Hawthorn blossom Craetegus monogyna showing incurved stamens

Carpels (the female reproductive organ of a flower, consisting of a style, an ovary, and a stigma) tend to be superior, growing above the flowering structure.  In some species, they are Perigynous, meaning the flowering parts grow around the edge of the receptacle where the pistil (the tube down to the seed, through which pollen has to travel to fertilize the ovule and form a seed) is housed.  Cherries and roses are perigynous. For more on ovary positions look at my blog on the ovary.

Cherry Prunus avium

Rosaceae Fruit: Aggregates, Drupes and Achenes

There is an extraordinary amount of variety in the fruits of the Rosaceae, and I’ve ended up putting my research here into a separate blog which I’ll publish in a week or two.  Below is a summary.

Rosacea produce one to two seeded fruit, but that’s where the similarities end.

Consider the variation.  Like the Ranunculaceae, some species have assemblies of achenes. Some achenes have spikes to help dispersal, such as the Geum and Avens species.  Or have achenes twisted together so they look like a “mister whippy” ice-cream, a beautiful effect shown by Measdowsweet.

Assembled carpels of the Mountain avens Dryas octopetala

Some familiar soft fruit, like the blackberry and raspberry, are made of lots of individual fruits.  Each a little “blob” is called a drupelet, and contains one or two seeds.  These are known as aggregate fruit.  From the position of the calyx, you can tell these have developed from superior ovaries.

Copyright Jersey post 2017 Blackberry Rubus fruticosa

Drupes are formed when ovary tissue swells to become fleshy, enclosed in a thin skin.  At the centre of this you have a hard stone, a woody coat for the seed within.  Peaches, plums, cherries and apricots are drupes.

Plum Prunus prunus

Apples and pears are pomes.  A pome is formed from the receptacle, the area below the flowering structure.  This swells and within it you find the apple core with five to ten pips.

Somerset redstreak apple Malus domestica

Strawberries attach their fruit to the outside of a swollen receptacle.  The fleshy red bit isn’t a fruit at all.  The fruit is each of the tiny yellow seeds embedded in the red flesh.

Strawberries Fragaria × ananassa

Rosaceae: Other species

As well as the fruit discussed, Rosaceae contains the Lady’s mantle, Silverweed, Cinquefoil, Piri-piri bur, Rowan, Sorbus species, Cotoneasters, and (of course) roses.

Piri Piri bur Acaena novae-zelandiae

Conclusion

I hope this blog on the Rosaceae wildflower family was of some interest.  What a varied family!  I hope to do more of these blogs over the coming weeks and months.  References include my FSC botany course, the Common Families of Flowering Plants by Michael Hickey & Clive King, and information from Naturespot.

Rowan Sorbus aucuparia sprig with berries and blossom

The post Wildflower families: Rosaceae, the Rose family appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Completed Autumn fruits guide

Species to illustrate

As I had already completed some of the illustrations, I didn’t need to paint all 42 species featured.  However, there were a lot that either needed doing fresh, required a new illustration, weren’t in full watercolour, or had to have more details provided.  This gave me a healthy list of 18 illustrations to do.  the Guelder rose below is fine, but is in pencil so could not be used on a full colour guide.

Autumn fruit in the spring

My main problem with this job was the timing.  I was commissioned in January with all the illustrations needing completing by the end of April.  There aren’t many fruits and berries around in springtime!  However, there are plenty of pine cones, so I began by illustrating those.  Literally, the low-hanging fruit.  And the easiest of these was the Spruce.

Norway spruce Picea abies cone

Working out of season is by no means unusual, and there is plenty of online reference.  Websites such as Kew’s Online flora, Naturespot, iNaturalist, and old illustrations dating back centuries are invaluable.  (It’s vital not to simply copy photos or illustrations, as this is infringing copyright and is also illegal).  I refer to my sketchbooks.  Many years ago I worked on some sketchbook tree sketches for a series of postage stamps.  Species like the the Sweet chestnut, ash, and lime proved mighty helpful for this job.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa sketchbook study

I also have boxes of stuff in the attic, including ash keys and conkers.  Very handy.

Ash Fraxinus excelsior keys

Leaves

As well as the fruit, leaves needing illustrating.  This was much simpler, although I avoided choosing the freshest of leaves as they tend to be a brighter shade of green.  There is almost nothing that gives me greater pleasure than spending a day illustrating a leaf from life.

Small-leaved Lime leaf Tilia cordata illustration in progress

I got my hands on Field maple, Lime, Wych elm, Sweet chestnut, and Sycamore leaves.  The Elm involved some acrobatic clambering, and it took me three or four days to find a local Sweet chestnut tree.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa illustration in progress

Challenges of illustrating autumn fruit: Horse chestnut

The trickiest species were those with unusual seed cases.  The spines of the Horse-chestnut, combined with the need to capture that rich, shiny mahogany conker colour was a case in point.  Having to figure out the geometry of the spines was key.  Which ones pointed in what direction, and where would the shadows fall?  Much easier if you have a conker case in hand.  (For more on this, see my blog on working from photo reference).  Because I couldn’t be totally certain of the play of light and shadows, I kept them muted which always reduces the impact of an illustration.

Horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum

The conkers themselves were easier, once I decided how to approach them.  Laying down lines which were then topped with concentric circles of paler colours proved to be a satisfactory approach.

Horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum conkers

The final illustration is something I’m pleased with, especially considering the bits of it that I invented!

Horse chestnut conker completed

Challenges of illustrating autumn fruit: Spindle

The spindle is a thoroughly extraordinary tree.  Its’ leaves go an astonishing shade in autumn, and the fruit are bright orange within hot pink seed cases.  Sadly, this is a species I had not got a sketchbook study for, so I was working from an amalgamation of about 30 different photos and old engravings.

The geometry was a challenge, figuring out how the berries were held by the pods.  But it was the colours that were hardest to capture, as they varied a great deal between photographs.

Spindle Euonymus europaeus  berries detail

Some of the reference showed the leaves as a rich crimson, others seemed to suggest they were bright orange, or hot pink.  Obviously, leaf colour varies from plant to plant and leaf to leaf.  But finding a happy medium here was tough!  I ended up giving details of venation in reds and pinks and uniting the leaf with an orange top wash.

Spindle Euonymus europaeus leaf detail

I must have done something right, the original illustration has been sold and now graces a wall in London.

Completed illustration with my paint box

Challenges of illustrating autumn fruit: Sweet chestnut

I liked painting the leaf of the Sweet chestnut as I had my sketchbook to work from, and living leaves.  I wish I could say the same for the seed case.  Although I had a few old seed cases in the attic, they had all dried and turned brown years before.  The geometry of the prickles is really hard to untangle, so I ended up working closely from photos.  I worked from the outside in, then added depth to the shadows between the spines.

Sweet chestnut in progress

I found myself wishing that FSC had been able to use my pen and ink with top colour illustration, done a couple of years ago.  The medium looks very different though, and they were right to ask for a new pure watercolour image.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa pen and ink illustration

The chestnut itself was fine as I’ve got plenty of sketchbook notes on this.  It is also a lot easier to capture than that nest of bright green prickles.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa

Easy species to illustrate: The Alder

Marvellously, some species hang onto their fruit.  This is true of the Alder.

Alder illustration in progress

Yes, the woody cones have long since shed their seeds, but there they are, still in place on a branch.  It was extremely easy to pick a few sprigs and work closely from life on this one.

Alder Alder glutinosa

Easy species to illustrate: The Field maple

The field maple gave me everything.  Not only were the leaves out in abundance, but for some reason a lot of the winged seeds were already pretty well developed.  This made my job very simple, (although it did concern me in terms of climate change.)  Field maple grow in hedgerows, so I could reach my reference without stretching and clambering up onto fence posts.

The pinky red flush on the stems and outermost edge of the young winged seeds is a real joy to paint.

Field maple Acer campestre sprig

Easy species to illustrate: The Sycamore

I already had most of the elements of the Sycamore completed.  All we needed was the seeds.  The angle of the paired seeds is less horizontal than the Field maple, and this is one of the species specific traits that needed recording.   I chose to illustrate a fresh pair of winged seeds, and a much older, dark brown seed.  The latter has been sat on the windowsill in my studio for about three years, slowly degrading, so I was glad to finally get around to illustrating it.

Sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus

This leaf was done for FOR Sweden last year.  In Scandinavia, Sycamore is considered an invasive species.  It was only introduced to Britain in the late 1500s.  For more on Sycamore, look at my tree blog.  There’s also a step by step blog explaining how to paint a leaf in autumn and an accompanying film, and another on illustrating a Sycamore tree.   No wonder I didn’t find illustrating this species tough, it’s clearly one I’ve been drawing and studying for ages!  I hadn’t even realised until I wrote this blog.

Sycamore leaf Acer pseudoplatanus

Easy species to illustrate: The Scots pine

In truth this was in no way easy.  the easy part was having access to both the pine needles, past illustrations, and pine cones.  The geometry of the pine cone is a thing of genius.  Until you want to draw it.  It’s all very well channelling your inner Fibonacci spiral, the fact that each facet of the cone projects outwards makes it a beastly subject to draw.  There’s a good blog on the geometry of pine cones from Awkward Botany.

Scots pine Pinus sylvestris completed with cones, paintbrush, and reference

Below is a close up of the cones.  I wanted to show how the scales open wider with age, releasing the seeds, and what a high level of variation there is between individual pine cones.  For more on the Scot’s pine, check out my blog.

Scots pine Pinus sylvestris

My favourite Autumn fruit illustration: The Guelder rose

The most fun of all the illustrations was the Guelder rose.  I had plenty of reference to work from and I know how to paint glossy red berries.  I love capturing the shines and highlights.  The green of the leaf is a bright colour, easier to work with than the blue green of a pine needle or muted green of a Field maple.

Detail of Guelder rose Viburnum opulus berries

I was also really pleased with the finished painting, which is never guaranteed.

Guelder rose Viburnum opulus leaf and fruit

Autumn Fruit: Conclusion

This was a great project to work on.  Yes, had I been commissioned in autumn it would have been easier, but despite it being the wrong end of the year I still enjoyed it.  I look forward to seeing the finished fold out guide over the next few months.  And to not having to paint chestnut seed cases or pine cones again anytime soon!

London plane Platanus × acerifolia leaf and seeds

…and here it is, the finished FSC Autumn fruits guide, available to buy direct from the FSC online shop.

The post Autumn fruits appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

The Horse chestnut is easily recognized, with distinctive palmate leaves and an autumnal crop of conkers.  It was introduced from Turkey around the 1600s, and is a common tree in parklands and towns, but occurs less often in woodland.

Identification: Tree shape

The tree grows up to 40m tall and has a wide, domed canopy with foliage coming low down the tree.  Trees live up to 300 years.  It grows fast in most soils, and needs plenty of space.

Identification: Leaves

Horse chestnut leaves are palmate, consisting of 5 – 7 sharp-tipped leaflets arranged like the fingers of an outstretched hand.  Each leaflet can be 30cm long, making for impressively large leaves.

The leaf margins are toothed, and each leaflet has clear alternate lateral veins.  They’re a rich green colour.  For more on leaf margins click here.  For a blog on compound vs simple leaves click this link, and tips on leaf shape can be found here.

Identification: Flowers

The flowers of the Horse chestnut grow in a clustered tower of up to 50 flowers, known as a panicle.  These are sometimes referred to as candles.  Branches of the panicle are longer at the base than the top, creating a cone shape.  The uppermost flowers are male, those in the middle are both sexes, and the lowest ones are all female.

 They have a distinctive shape with bilateral symmetry.  Each flower is 9-11mmm long and has 5 fringed white petals, with a yellow patch at the base.  Once pollinated, this turns from yellow to dark pink.  This may communicate to visiting insects that the flower is no longer worth visiting as it has ceased providing nectar post fertilization.

Identification: Fruit

Horse chestnut seeds are known as conkers.  Only 5 or so flowers per panicle develop into conkers.

The conker is instantly recognizable.  Encased in a pale yellow-green, spiked case; conkers are a shiny mahogany brown.  This type of seed is known as a capsule by botanists.  (For more on seed types, check out my blog.)

There are 1-3 conkers per fruit, released when the seed case splits three ways at maturity.  Each is up to 4cm across, with the entire fruit measuring up to 7cm

Identification: Bark and buds

The bark is pinkish-grey and thin in young trees, becoming grey-brown and scaly with age.

Buds are distinctive and grow on stout hairless twigs.  They are a rich reddish brown, oval, and very sticky.  Lateral buds are opposite.

When the leaves shed, they leave a distinctive horseshoe-shaped scar.  This could be the source of the tree’s name; although some suggest it relates to the curative flour, made from ground up conkers, that used to be fed to horses.

Similar species

The Indian Horse chestnut, Aesculus indica, native to the Himalayas, is the only similar species.  Like the Horse chestnut, it is planted in parks and public spaces.

However, it follows in June rather than April to May and is a less robust tree.  Indian Horse chestnut conkers are small, dark brown and wrinkled, and held in smooth green seed cases.

History: Folklore

Because the tree was introduced to the UK comparatively recently, there’s not a great deal of folk lore associated with it.

However, the conkers are threaded onto strings and used to play – wait for it – conkers.  The first recorded game occurred in 1848 on the Isle of Wight, although there’s evidence the game was played with other less suitable nuts prior to this.

 To play, you take it in turns to whack your opponent’s conker with your own, the aim being to smash your opponent’s conker to bits.  Baking, pickling in vinegar, and drying for a year or more are all methods thought to toughen up a prize conker.  To this day, kids in the UK play conkers every year (although some well-meaning schools have banned the practice because it’s deemed dangerous).

One foot note is that some think keeping conkers in a room discourages spiders.  My studio has an open box of conkers and a plethora of friendly spiders, so I remain unconvinced.

History: Mankind and Horse chestnut wood

The wood of the Horse chestnut is pale and light.  It is weak and is mainly used to make children’s toys and for carving.  As it’s absorbent, it is also used to make trays for storing fruit, and it was sometimes used to make light weight artificial limbs.

History: Food and Medicine

Conkers were ground up into flour in Victorian times, and used as a coffee substitute during World War 2.  The mildly poisonous nature of the fruit, and its limited appeal has made this practice obsolete.

Flower buds can be used as a substitute for hops in beer brewing

Medicinally, conkers were fed to cattle and horses by Turkish soldiers in the 1600s to cure respiratory disorders.

Varicose veins, haemorrhoids, sprains and bruising can all be treated with Horse chestnut creams which thin the blood.  This makes it harder for blood to leak from veins and capillaries, and is useful in the treatment of water retention and oedema.  Aescin seems to be the active compound at work here, both for animal and human ailments.

Finally, the high levels of saponin made them good for making soap, after crushing and soaking the conkers in boiling water.  They are considered useful as moth deterrents by some.

Horse chestnut and Wildlife

The profusion of flowers provide a welcome treat to pollinating bees in late spring, and the caterpillars of the Triangle moth Trigonodes hyppasia feed on the leaves.

The larva of the Horse chestnut leaf mining moth Cameraria ohridella also feed on the leaves, the caterpillars are part of the diet of birds like the Bluetit.

Threats

Two pests and diseases have taken a firm hold of the Horse chestnut population recently.

The first is the Horse chestnut leaf miner mentioned above.  This insect burrows through the leaves, eating as it goes.  It can make entire trees look ill with blotched, yellowing leaves.  The good news is that there’s little evidence that the caterpillars do any lasting damage, merely altering the appearance of the tree.

The second is Horse chestnut bleeding canker, a more serious threat.  This bacterial infection damages the wood and bark, blocking the tubes of the phloem, making it impossible for the tree to carry water and nutrients.  This eventually kills the tree.

Signs of the canker include oozing dark patches on the trunk, discolouration of the wood, and chunks of bark peeling away.  This canker is becoming more common since it was first noted in the 1970s, and now infects more than 30% of English Horse chestnuts.

Trees also suffer leaf blotching caused by the Guignardia fungus, and are prone to scale insect infestations.

Conclusion

With their beautiful candles of flowers and ornamental stature, Horse chestnuts are handsome trees.  Although of limited practical or culinary use, they are vital to parkland and gardens.  One can but hope that the threats posed by canker and pests don’t end up reducing the population of these trees too seriously.

Online sources for this blog include websites of the Woodland trust, Trees for life, Totally wild, the Tree guide UK, and NatureSpot.  Reference books for this blog include the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies  , and the Reader’s Digest The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain (out of print but commonly available second-hand).  I also referred to The Tree Forager by Adele Nozedar and The Living Wisdom of Trees by Fred Hageneder.

The post Trees: Horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

This is one of a series of blogs I’m writing on common British trees.  You can also see blogs on the Elder, the Yew, the Ash, the Oak, the Holly, the Sycamore, the Rowan, the Hawthorn, the Birch and the Beech.

There are 10 species of Lime in the UK, with three growing commonly in the wild.  Along with the Small-leaved Lime Tilia cordata, the focus of this blog; there is the Common lime Tilia x europea and the Large-leaved (or Broad-leaved) lime Tilia platyphyllos.   Lime trees are often called Linden trees, a catch all for all Tilia  species.

It’s important to remember that these lime trees have nothing to do with the citrus family’s lime tree which bears the lime fruit, Citrus x Latifolia

Identification: Tree shape

The Small-leaved lime reaches up to 20m and has a pretty conventional shape.  They grow in ancient woodland, favouring moist nutrient-rich soils, although Large-leaved limes prefer lime-rich areas.

Lime Tilia cordata tree

Identification: Leaves

Leaves are 3-8cm long and shaped like a heart (as noted in the Latin name, cordata, which means heart-shaped).  They have sharp small teeth and a prominent tip.  Sometimes they are wider than their length.

Leaf of Small-leaved lime

Where the leaf stem or petiole attaches to the twig there are tufts of rust-red hairs.  These also appear on the underside of the leaf, at the junctions of the veins.

Identification: Flowers

The flowers smell delicious and are carried in clusters of five to ten blooms.  They have five petals, are a greenish yellow, and carry male and female reproductive structures.

Lime flower

Unlike other Lime trees, the flowers stick out from the leaf-like bract they’re attached to at all angles.  Other species have more pendulous blossoms.

Flowering cyme of the Small-leaved lime Tilia cordata

Identification: Fruit

Small-leaved lime fruit ripen in August and are small and round.  They have prominent tips.

Identification: Bark and buds

Small-leaved lime bark starts smooth but develops fissured plates with age.  The twigs are chestnut brown, and become glossy in the sunshine.  The underside of the twigs is often flushed olive green.

Bark of the Common lime Tilia x europea

Buds are up to 4mm long, have two scales. and are shiny red.

Similar species

The two other common UK Lime species are the Large-leaved and Common lime.  The Large-leaved lime has bigger leaves which grow to 13cm long and have more regular teeth.  Hairs cover the underside of each leaf.  Large-leaved lime carry flowers in clusters of three to a maximum of six, and the fruits are prominently ribbed.

Large-leaved lime Tilia platyphyllos

Common lime is a hybrid of the other two species so shows mixed characteristics.  It also has heart-shaped leaves which are larger than those of the Small-leaved lime.  The hair tufts on the underside of the leaves are white, not red.  When in bud, Common lime twigs zig-zag and bear a bud at each change of direction.

History: Folklore

In Eastern Europe, the Lime is a symbol of fertility and is considered sacred in Slavic culture.  It has links to the Germanic and Norse earth goddesses Frigga and Freyya.  Germanic cultures in ancient times used the tree as a symbol of justice, with trials taking place beneath its boughs. Tthe Swiss and French planted Lime trees to celebrate battles.  In Britain Lime trees were planted along roads to encourage prosperous harvests of grain.

Linden tree

The tree is also associated with love and romance.

History: Mankind and Linden wood

Lime wood does not warp if cured correctly so is used to make bowls, furniture, and piano keys.  It is soft and light and easy to work.  Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) carved his ornate alter pieces and panels from lime wood as it cuts cleanly and easily, and traditional nesting Matroshka dolls were carved from Lime.

The inner layer of the bark is fibrous and was used by Europeans and First Nations’ peoples to make rope, fishing nets, and string until Hemp was introduced from China in 400BC.

History: Food and Medicine

The flowers of the Lime tree are dried and made into fragrant herbal teas whilst the sap can be made into wine.

Medicinally, the teas or tissanes made from Lime were used to treat “nervous disorders”.  These included headaches and insomnia.  The tea is said to soothe diarrhoea and sinusitis as well as being used to calm jangled nerves and reduce blood pressure and cholesterol. It was said that sitting under a Lime tree could mitigate epilepsy.

Small-leaved lime

Applied to the skin, it can soothe skin conditions.

Lime trees and Wildlife

The blossoms of the lime tree attract pollinators, and in America Lime tree species are sometimes called “bee trees”.  Linden blossom honey is delicious.  Along with the bees and butterflies, wasps, and hoverflies, the trees also attract vast numbers of aphids and their “farmers”, ants.  All lime trees tend to be coated in honeydew produced by the aphids which makes the leaves sticky and may cover the ground below the tree.  The aphids attract predators such as hoverflies and ladybirds.

Ladybird Coccinella septempuctata

Nail galls are common on the Small-leaved lime and look like tiny scarlet fingers growing from the leaf surface.  They are the product of the Eriophyes tiliae mite which feed inside them, and seem to do no damage to the tree.

Lime Tilia europaea leaf nail galls from mite Eriophyes tiliae

Moths such as the Lime hawkmoth, Peppered moth, Vapourer and Scarce hook-tip use the Lime as a food plant whilst birds and wood boring beetles exploit the dead wood of older trees to make their homes.

Threats

Ancient woodland is a rare habitat in the UK, although it used to cover much of the land.  In 3000BC the Small-leaved lime was the most common broad-leaved tree in the UK.  Ancient woodland is where most Small-leaved limes grow, so the threats to this habitat are mirrored in the threats to the trees.

Some fungal infections can cause cankers and root rot, and occasionally a Lime tree may die from Wilt.

Aphids and some mites weaken the tree, but there are no new fatal diseases wiping out all our Lime trees.

Conclusion

With the scented flowers and heart shaped leaves, Limes are easy to recognize.  They make safe homes for many insects and are a firm favourite with pollinators.  With strong pale wood and a plethora of uses in herbal medicine, the tree has been used by mankind for millennia.  And luckily, despite the loss of ancient broad-leaved woodland, the Lime or Linden looks set to remain an important tree of the British Isles for many years to come.

Small-leaved lime Tilia cordata

Online sources for this blog include websites of the Woodland trust, Kew Plants of the World, Tree guide UK, and Nature Spot. Reference books for this blog include the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies, and the Reader’s Digest The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain (out of print but commonly available second-hand).  I also referred to The Tree Forager by Adele Nozedar and The Living Wisdom of Trees by Fred Hageneder.

The post Trees: Small-leaved lime or Linden appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

There are two main Birch trees in the UK, the Silver birch Betula pendula and the Downy birch Betula pubescens.  The Downy birch tends to grow better in wetter areas and in the north.  The Silver birch likes drier soils and is often found growing ornamentally in gardens and cities.

Both reach heights of 30m and can have a 20m spread.

They are pioneer species, easy to recognise, represent guardianship and fertility, and they are used to make everything from shoes to bobbins.  Birch also treats ailments as diverse as gout and skin disorders.

Birch trees support over 300 insect species, and birch woodland provides a wonderful habitat for woodland flowers.

This is one of a series of blogs I’m writing on common British trees.  You can also see blogs on the Elder, the Yew, the Ash, the Oak, the Holly, the Sycamore, the Rowan, the Beech, and the Hawthorn.

Identification: Tree shape

Birches have a slender shape, and twigs which can droop.

They are often the first to colonize a landscape which has been devastated by fire or deforestation.  When it comes to re-wilding, scrubby birch wood is often the first step.  This makes them pioneer species, settling the land and making it accessible to other plant species.

Birch is the commonest tree in Scotland, and the Downy birch stretches way up into the arctic.  For more on trees growing in such inhospitable climates, check out my blog on illustrating The Treeline by Ben Rawlence.

Identification: Leaves

Leaves are more or less triangles, with toothed margins.  Each leaf is up to 6cm long, and shiny green.  In autumn they turn to a bright, pale yellow.

Downy birch have less jagged margin teeth than the Silver birch, and the leaves are diamond-shaped, and less rounded.  However, the two birches frequently hybridize, hence me popping them into the same blog.

Identification: Flowers

The birch is monoecious, which means it carries male and female flowers on the same plant.   These are wind pollinated catkins.  Male catkins are yellowish, and grow through the winter maturing as the birch leaves grow in spring, then dropping.  These are long catkins, easily visible, and carried in groups of 3 or 4 at the tips of the shoots.

Catkins of the DownyBirch

Female catkins are smaller, and bright green.  They’re borne upright and flower in April through May,

Catkins of the Silver birch

Identification: Fruit

After pollination, the female catkin thickens and develops a dark crimson colour.  Masses of tiny seeds are released from this fruit, and borne off in the wind.

Fruiting catkins of the Downy birch

Identification: Bark

Silver birch bark is what gives the tree its name.  It’s paper white, and can be peeled from the tree in sheets.  There are often dark diamonds present, and older trees may have far darker trunks, especially towards the tree base.

The white colour reflects UV light, some suggest it works like a sunscreen in areas where reflected light from the snow can be blinding.

Buds are long, purplish and pointed.

Twigs are drooping and smooth, with dark warts.  The shoots of Silver and Downy birch can be used to tell them apart.  Silver birch shoots are smooth with warts, whereas those of Downy birch are rough, warty, and covered in short, downy hair.

Similar species

The white bark sets these trees apart from others, and the little triangular leaves with their jagged edges are unlike other large tree leaves.

Most sources suggest the main problem here is telling your Downy form your Silver birch, other species don’t get a mention!

History: Folklore

The Birch is seen as a guardian tree, and a way to keep evil spirits at bay.

Baby cradles would be made form birch to keep the devil away, and people would bring bundles of birch wood into their homes at Halloween to repel the evil spirits.  Birch brooms swept out dirt, but also got rid of the devil, and a garland of birch twigs might be hung over the door for protection.

However, witches broomsticks were also meant to be birch wood, so there’s some disconnect there.

Birch is also closely linked to fertility.  Using a switch of birch on a heifer would either ensure she got pregnant, or that the calf was healthy.

In Britain, if a couple wished to live together but not marry, they could step over a birch broomstick together.  Once done, they could live as man and wife.

When Beltaine came around on May 1st, with all its’ links to spring and fertility, it would be the Birch tree chosen as the wood for the maypole.  In some places, this festival meant any legal bonds between couples could be lifted for 24hrs, and there was frequently a spike in birth-rate at the start of the following February.  It will come as no surprise that these practices left the Christian church apoplectic, but powerless to do much about it.

Birch also relates to motherhood and femininity.  Russian folklore has the Birch as the “Lady of the Woods”, while there are close links between the Irish goddess Brigid and the Birch.  Brigid was the goddess of poetry, something of a muse, and responsible for spinning and weaving.

History: Mankind and Birch wood

Birch wood is pale and soft and not very durable.  It’s used for walking sticks and broom handles, and makes good charcoal.  It also makes good skateboards!  Bobbins and spinning reels were made of birch wood, back in the days of the Lancashire Cotton industry.

The bark has been used to make a plethora of things.  Sheets of bark were perfect as paper substitutes.  Applied to roofs, it provided a level of waterproofing against the rain.  You could mould the bark into shoes, or use strips woven together to make baskets for soft fruit.

Canoes and boats, hats, firelighters, and rolled bark candles were all made from Birch bark.

Powdered birch helped ensure you had a pale complexion.

Leaves yield a reddish dye, while the catkins provide a sunshine yellow colour.

History: Food and Medicine

The sap of the Birch was gathered and made into wine.  This was fed to those afflicted with kidney stones, or urinary tract infections.

Tea made from birch leaves worked on gout and again on kidney stones.  The leaves are indeed full of flavonoids, a type of anti-oxidant.

Birch bark oil was used to treat skin disorders like eczema and psoriasis; the same substance was used to waterproof boats.

In the north, after a sauna you can stimulate circulation by beating yourself with a birch stick.  And, while we’re on the topic of beating, the dreaded old school cane was often made of birch.

Birch and Wildlife

Birch woodland has a light, airy canopy.  This proves excellent for wild flowers like Wood anemone, Violets, Bluebell, and Wood sorrel, as well as for mosses.

Over 300 insect species are associated with birch, including a lot of aphid species.  In turn, this means that Birch trees are great for ladybirds who feast on the aphids.  Moths such as Angleshades, Buff tip, and Kentish Glory have Birch as host plant for their caterpillars.

Birds use the birch too; siskin and greenfinch eat the seeds while woodpecker nest in tree cavities.

Fungus are common on the woodland floor with Fly agaric, Woolly milk cap, Chanterelle, and the Birch polypore closely associated with the birch.

Fly agaric Amanita muscaria

Threats

The threats to Birch in the UK are limited,  Plantations can fall prey to Birch dieback, which is caused by two fungal species.  However, self-seeded trees seem more immune.

As with every single species, the climate emergency presents challenges to birch trees living very far north.  However, it’s probably the Downy birch tree’s incremental growth further and further northward that forms a more immediate ecological threat.

Conclusion

Birch are elegant ornamental trees, instantly recognised thanks to their white bark.

With links to protection and fertility, and the ability to heal skin diseases and be used for building canoes, it’s a fascinating tree.

The most common tree in the whole of Scotland, and stretching across vast swathes of the planet, the Birch is worthy of our respect, and love.

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Kew’s Plants of the World, Tree guide UK, Trees for life, and Naturespot.  Reference books for this blog include the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies  , and the Reader’s Digest The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain (out of print but commonly available second-hand).  I also referred to The Tree Forager by Adele Nozedar and The Living Wisdom of Trees by Fred Hageneder.

The post Trees: Birch appeared first on Lizzie Harper.

Beech trees are common across Britain, favouring chalky soils.  The oldest Beech trees live up to 400 years.  You’ll find them in open spaces and in woodland and can tell them straight away by their smooth bark.  The trees produce beech mast which is nutritious for animals, and the canopy supports wildlife.  Beech wood is used in furniture making, and has links to the earliest of books.  It’s associated with knowledge and femininity, and has been used to treat ailments and as food.

This is one of a series of blogs I’m writing on common British trees.  You can also see blogs on the Elder, the Yew, the Ash, the Oak, the Holly, the Sycamore, the Rowan, and the Hawthorn.

Identification: Tree shape

The Beech grows up to 30m tall, and its’ shape varies according to where it’s growing.  In open fields, the branches spread into a wide canopy.  In confined woodland there are few side branches and a much straighter silhouette.

Identification: Leaves

In spring, as they unfurl, Beech leaves are a bright acid green, and are covered in downy hairs.  As they mature they become a more modest green, and in autumn have a pretty consistent warm tan colour.  Leaves are 4 to 9cm long, and are oval with smooth but wavy margins.  They’re arranged alternately.  Each leaf has 5 to 9 pairs of veins.

Leaves overlap, making an umbrella-like canopy with shields the floor below from rain.  They also are rich in lignin, which means they decompose slowly. This means the woodland floor is often a difficult habitat, dry and carpeted with persistent crunchy leaves.  You could know you’re in a beech wood by sound alone.

Beech trees hang onto their leaves through winter, which is known as macrescence.

Be aware that the common Copper beech is a varient of this native species.  It looks similar, but the leaves are a dark maroon instead of green.

Identification: Flowers

Male and female flowers are carried on the same plant, and are pollinated by the wind.  Female flowers grow in pairs, within a little cup.  Male flowers are catkins carried on long, tassel-like catkins.  Flowers appear as the young leave emerge in spring.

Identification: Fruit

Beech nuts are known as mast, and consist of three triangular nuts encased in a spiny case.  This splits open, revealing the chestnut-brown nuts surrounded by a pale velvety lining.

They’re produced in real abundance once every four or five years, which is known as a mast year.

Identification: Bark and buds

Beech bark is really distinctive.  It’s very smooth and pale grey.  It stretches as it grows, so when names are carved on beech trees they become distorted over time.

The bark is sensitive to sunlight.  If an older tree is suddenly exposed to a lot of direct sun, the bark will get “sunburn” and this can kill the whole tree.

Buds are distinctively pointed and slender, reddish brown and with a clear criss-cross pattern.  No other trees in Britain have quite such pointy buds, which (along with the bark) means it’s easy to identify in winter.

Similar species

Because of the smooth bark and persistent leaves, beech isn’t readily confused with other trees.  Hornbeam Carpinus betulus has similar shaped wavy leaves, but these have teeth on the margins

History: Folklore

Beech trees have been associated with knowledge and femininity.  In Britain, the Beech is sometimes called “the queen of the woods”.  Romans had sacred beech groves, some dedicated to Jupiter, and some to Diana, Goddess of animals and the hunt.

Writing and learning have associations with the Beech, possibly because of its links to the invention of the book.

In Westphalia, in Germany, up til the 18^th century there was a tale that babies weren’t brought by the stork, but found in the hollows of Beech trees.

Finally, druids often used beech twigs for water divination.

History: Mankind and Beech wood

The wood of beech is hard and heavy, but not tough.  It’s no good for building as it can’t bear weight, but responds well to steaming so has been used to make the backs and legs of Windsor chairs and other bentwood furniture.  Trees were often pollarded for this purpose.

The wood burns hot, and was used in industry – fuelling fires for iron, glass, and charcoal production.

Beech mast is over 50% oil, so the nuts have been used as a source of furniture polish.  Meanwhile the leaves, non-degrading and persistent were used to stuff (presumably very noisy!) mattresses.

Beech tar was used as glue from paleo to mesolithinc times.

Before the invention of paper, thin slabs of beech wood were used to write on, and sometimes bound into prototype books.  There’s evidence of this in Germany in the 1300s.  There’s some suggestion that Guttenburg had the idea for his historic press after writing on beech wood and noticing the pressure made a print on the page below.

History: Food and Medicine

The beech mast is highly nutritious, providing oil and protein, but is very difficult to access.  In general, it was fed to cattle, goats, pigs, and sheep who foraged in woodland, or gathered up and fed to overwintering livestock.

However, in times of hardship, and until the Iron age, beech mast was roasted and made into flour.  In France, the roast mast was used to make a coffee-like drink.

Newly emergent leaves are tender and can be used in salads and soups.

Beechwood tar was used as chewing gum, and I’m sure even in my childhood in the 1970s you could buy packets of Beech nut chewing gum,

Medicinally, Beech was used to treat bronchitis and has astringent, antiseptic and disinfectant properties.  These were recognized by early Europeans and by the First Nations People in the Americas, who used bark preparations to fight fever.

It’s also used to treat animal hoof ailments, and in soap production.

Beech and Wildlife

The unusually shady forest floor found in beech woodland initially seems devoid of life.  However, some rare plants like the Coralroot bittercress and Red helleborine love these conditions, as do fungi.

Truffles can grow here, and in the past beech woods were planted to encourage them.

Moths feed on the leaves, namely the Olive Cresent, Barred Hook-tip, and Clay triple-line species.

Wood boring insects and larger animals like woodpeckers often make their homes within the tree.

The beech mast feeds a whole ecosystem; from voles to badgers, squirrels to jays, mice to great tits, woodpeckers to nuthatches.

Threats

When compared to other British tree species, the Beech isn’t in too much trouble.

At around 200 years old they can develop core rot in they’re growing in an environment low in tannic acid.  Basically, this means anywhere without Oak trees growing nearby.  This can kill them.

The trees can suffer root rot, caused by fungus like Phytopora,

Beech bark disease is caused by scale insects and a canker fungus.  This causes lesions to appear on the bark every year.  Eventually, these encircle the tree and thus can kill it.

However, a swifter way for a Beech to be “girdled” is when Grey squirrels come and strip all the bark off.  This can soon result in death and is especially problematic in younger trees.

Conclusion

The Beech tree is common, easy to spot, and useful.  With the smooth bark, pointy buds, and over-wintering orange-ish leaves, it’s easy to identify.  Although not used in building or as food; the wood and beech mast has proved vital over the centuries.  From chair backs to chewing gum, charcoal production to ancient flour, livestock feed to books, fevers to ancient glue; the Beech tree has served mankind well.

They’re pretty trees, and well worth a closer look next time you’re in a woodland with crunchy leaves underfoot.

Online sources for this blog include websites of The Woodland Trust, Kew’s Plants of the World, Tree guide UK, Trees for life, and Naturespot.  Reference books for this blog include the excellent The Greenwood Trees by Christina Hart-Davies  , and the Reader’s Digest The Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of Britain (out of print but commonly available second-hand).  I also referred to The Tree Forager by Adele Nozedar and The Living Wisdom of Trees by Fred Hageneder.

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