The Wood for the Trees
Page 33
9. Gabriel Hemery, the author of The New Sylva, is its visionary. The charity was set up in 2008 to revive interest in native woodland, to explore old and invent new industrial uses for wood products, to inspire schoolchildren and to engage artists and scientists in the cause.
10. Manuel Limo, The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge (Princeton Architectural Press, 2013).
The interior of the wood in March, before the leaves on the beech trees have unfurled, and while the sky is fully visible.
Transformation: the same view in April, with fresh foliage capturing the sunlight and bluebells carpeting the woodland floor in the distance.
Among the mass of English bluebells one rare white example is a natural variant. Many garden cultivars may have originated from such infrequent “sports.”
The lesser celandine appears in early spring to catch the sunlight before the canopy closes over. By midsummer this humble plant will have disappeared.
A beech seedling sprouts from the woodland floor. The seed leaves differ markedly from those of the grown tree. Empty beech cupules lie to the right.
Inconspicuous flowers of the holly tree in spring. These are the female flowers with the rudiment of the berry at the centre—the male flowers are found on separate trees.
Wild cherry (gean) in its vernal glory, in flower before the beech leaves behind it have woken up.
The flowers are white or the most delicate shade of pink.
Lonny van Ryswyck’s experiments with natural materials in the wood. Above: Clay and different pigments produce subtly shaded tiles. Below: Flints of variable purity can be fired to produce distinct shades of glass. A green ingot was included in the collection.
The flowers of the yellow bird’s nest (Monotropa), a plant without chlorophyll, rise directly from the ground. The special relationship of this remarkable plant with fungi and beech roots has stimulated new research.
The original painting of Britain’s rarest plant, the ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum, which was discovered in the wood in the twentieth century (National Museum of Wales). This is another remarkable plant that lacks chlorophyll.
Mothing in the wood.
Summer nights spent in the wood with Andrew Padmore reveal more than 150 species of moths that are attracted to the light trap. After photography, moths can be released without harm. This Pale Tussock Moth has characteristically furry-looking legs at rest.
The writer struggles with an identification handbook in the light of the moth trap, guided by Andrew. There are endless variations in the exquisite designs of these insects.
The name of the Blood Vein Moth hardly requires explanation. The delicately feathery antennae are the moth’s principal sensory equipment. The caterpillars of this moth feed on herbs.
The Purple Thorn Moth is a chunky species with serrated wings. Its caterpillars are among the many species that enjoy browsing on beech leaves.
The Satin Beauty Moth is a perfect example of cryptic colouration, invisible during the daytime against tree bark. The larva will feed on yew.
Butterflies are attracted to the clearings in the wood to bask in the sunlight, like this speckled wood perched on a bramble leaf.
The peacock butterfly flashes its prominent “eyes” when disturbed, but is cryptically coloured beneath.
A silver-washed fritillary butterfly gorges on bramble nectar; a large and uncommon butterfly, and star of the lepidopteran parade.
The restless comma butterfly has a ragged-looking hind edge to its wings, which distinguishes it from all others in the wood.
The red kite is the sentinel of the skies over the wood. Its mewing cry is often heard even when it cannot be seen.
A brown long-eared bat is a specialised predator upon the many moths that throng in the woodland at night.
This little field vole seemed unfazed by our attention after being trapped, and scuttled back gratefully into the wild.
Our rarest mammal, the hazel dormouse, spends much of its time in a torpid state, waking up to feast on fruit and flowers.
The golden hoard of late Iron Age coins found inside a hollow flint close to the wood. At this time the ground was probably clear of trees.
After much searching below the leaf litter, these small truffles (Elaphomyces) were finally a sufficient reward for a persistent mycologist.
A selection of snails from the wood. All of them are small and thin-shelled, reflecting a shortage of lime for shell construction in this habitat.
The cherry-picker lifting the writer up into the summer canopy of the beech trees. The splayed legs are rather like those of a spider.
This large black terrestrial spider, Coelotes terrestris, is confined to the southern half of England, and was found under our log pile.
Slime mould (Lycogala epidendrum) forming pink balls on damp, rotten wood. At this stage their interiors are soft and creamy.
Crab spider Diaea dorsata lurking on a holly leaf, where its green tints provide an appropriate disguise for a small predator.
A rare crane fly (Ctenophora) with spectacular antennae, which distinguish it from its many relatives.
Ancient Chiltern countryside: the view westwards across the Assendon Valley from Henley Park, with our wood and the site of “the murder cottage” near the skyline.
The elaborate monument to the Knollys of Greys Court in Rotherfield Greys parish church. The Knollys were a powerful family in the Tudor court.
The manor house of Greys Court, Oxfordshire, today, which is much as it was at the time the Knollys managed our wood.
The Stapleton family. In the foreground, the unmarried Stapleton sisters, who occupied Greys Court for much of the nineteenth century. Painted by Thomas Beach, 1789 (Holburne Museum, Bath).
The pelargonium variety “Miss Stapleton,” named for the senior Stapleton sister, who was an enthusiast for these plants. Her greenhouse still remains at Greys Court.
Document recording the granting of rights to grub up the “Roots & Runts” of beech trees cleared just below our wood, in aid of the Lambridge Charity (Oxfordshire Records Office).
The black-and-white livery of the magpie toadstool is distinctive among the ink caps. It is a typical species of beech woodland.
The stinkhorn fungus (Phallus impudicus) lives up to its name. The flies are enjoying a malodorous “soup,” which helps spread the spores.
The sulphur polypore grows out as soft brackets from dead cherry wood. It becomes more leathery as it matures.
Looking upwards towards the leafy canopy through a crowd of glistening ink caps growing on a rotten beech stump.
Rhodotus palmatus is an uncommon and beautiful mushroom with a wrinkled cap skin. It grows on fallen wych elm trunks decaying in the wood.
The red slug Arion rufus on its way up a tree in the wood.
A glossy black dor beetle, Anoplotropes, in search of herbivore dung in which to lay its eggs.
An uncommon beetle, Oedemera femoralis, with unusually long wing cases (elytra).
A strikingly coloured longhorn beetle, Rutpela maculata, showing the long antennae. Their larvae feed on wood.
A sexton beetle, Nicrophorus humator, coleopteran undertaker. This specimen is carrying a tiny mite, which will hitch a ride to a promising carcass; the beetle is unaware of the passenger on its back.
Alistair Phillips at work at his lathe turning a wild cherry-wood bowl from timber derived from one of our felled trees.
Small-scale charcoal-burning in progress in an old oil drum. Charcoal was one of the important products of the wood in medieval times.
A flint derived from the chalk at the Fair Mile, with a fanciful resemblance to a sitting cow (the “rother” of Rotherfield)—one for the collection. Pure flint like this makes good stone tools and the best glass.
The author making notes—sitting on a fallen cherry branch.
Jan Siberechts’s 1698 painting of Henley showing flashlocks in the foreground, while timber that could have come from our wood is piled up by whar
ves near the town.
An autumn leaf of wych elm resting on an elm trunk shows its typically asymmetrical leaf base.
In early spring, male wych elm flowers are little more than bunches of colourful stamens.
The drawers of Philip Koomen’s cabinet hold the treasures of the collection. The dormouse nest is backed by my leather-bound notebook, and our own green glass.
The Koomen collection cabinet back in the wood, with the cherry planks that gave it birth stacked up behind it.
Lichens decorate fallen branches in the winter. This one, Parmelia (shield lichen), can tolerate pollution. Others are very choosy.
Mosses like this bank haircap (Polytrichastrum) form delightful cushions in wetter, colder times.
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