Thursday, November 16, 2006

16 November: Oak, and Ash, and Thorn

Needing fresh air after several days hunched over a computer, yesterday afternoon I went out for a local walk. As I've recently been reading "Woodlands" by Oliver Rackham, part of the New Naturalist Library, I was paying more attention than usual to the individual trees.

Along the lane, I noticed oak and ash and thorn, and thought of the Kipling poem "A Tree Song".

On the other side of the lane are a row of lime trees -


Then walking through the fields towards the farm, there's a large solitary ash tree in the hedge -


Along the track leading from the farm to the road is an old thorn hedge, which these days is trimmed with a tractor and one of those flail things, but you can see at the base where it was once cut and laid properly -


And in one place a large tree has been cut down. Even though the stump has been burnt, and is now full of casual rubbish from passers by, it is doing its best to grow with dozens of new shoots from the base. Closer inspection revealed that there are actually two sorts of shoots - the ash of the big stump itself, and some other shoots, on the left in the photo, which may be hornbeam.


"Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn."
etc.

7 comments:

KAZ said...

Lovely post - that solitary tree in the second pic looks just like the view from my bedroom window when I was a kid.
The tree supported me through O levels and A levels.
All I have now is a car park and Sainsbury's Metro.

Heather said...

Lovely photos. I feel I have learnt something about trees. I like pine trees as well they smell nice.

stitchwort said...

Thank you both.
I like trees a great deal, and find them good medicine - wouldn't like to live where there were no trees.

Anonymous said...

Lovely!! (-:

Rog said...

We live near the second biggest lowland forest in England Stitch - Thetford Forest.

When we take Oz there, with so many trees he hasn't got a leg to stand on!

stitchwort said...

Ah yes, we have been to Thetford many times, both for orienteering races and for walks when visiting the parents in law.
Plantation rather than forest, though.

Anonymous said...

I've started to get interested in trees lately ... we have some gorgeous ones around Bury including enormous cedars of Lebanon which I adore. Have been looking at some websites to try and learn more, and my fave is this one: http://www.british-trees.com/