Dog's Mercury

Dog's Mercury is one of the plants that indicate the presence of ancient woodland.  This is because it spreads by underground runners rather than seed.  As it cannot compete with the lush growth of grasslands, it cannot cross open ground and so does not easily colonise new areas.

So although it is not a very striking plant to look at - this is the male plant in full bloom - it is something to note with interest.

The female flowers are even less prepossessing.

Colour difference in the photos is due to differing light conditions; they are usually the same colour - but hardly ever meet.

We have quite a lot of it in Filnore Woods.  Its presence, along with several other ancient woodland indicators, suggests that this was the site of an ancient woodland.   

Plants like bluebells, yellow archangel, red campion and violets may all have been hanging on in hedgerows and shady spots since the middle ages and even since the last ice age.  We aim to create the conditions in which they can flourish again.

Processing the coppice

In the hazel coppice up near post 8, the sticks were waiting.  We just hadn't had time to process them all.

Undergrowth was beginning to cloak them in green

And out in the open the grass and cow parsley were growing up through the unsorted wood.

Well on Sunday before last our hard-working volunteers set to, cutting,  processing and sorting the coppiced hazel wood to make useful poles.  The unuseable material was made into a dead hedge between two rows of stakes.

Here's the team, less Alan the photographer and Peter A, who just can't stop working (see him sharpening stakes in the picture above).  

From left to right: Derek, Will, Eric, Phil, Andy and Peter B.

Digger wasp

I rescued this handsome beastie from my conservatory.

I can't find an exact replica in my insect identification books or on any websites, but it seems probable that it is either a digger wasp from the Sphecidae family, or a spider-hunting wasp from the Pompilidae, or a potter or mason wasp from the Eumenidae. 

Any entomologists out there to help in identifying her?

Ever so umbel

In woods and fields and on roadside verges, clouds of Queen Anne's Lace, a.k.a.  Cow Parsley, are in flower.

As usual there is loads of it at Filnore. It can be waist high or even up to your shoulder.

 The abundance of it is a pleasure but the individual flowers also repay a closer inspection.

It has a smaller cousin the Pignut, which only grows about a foot high

It is flowering now too, both in the grassland .. .. ..   

.. .. .. and more modestly in the woodland

The leaves of pignut are hard to find in the grass but in the wood you can see how finely divided they are. 

Compare them with the larger, more ferny leaves of cow parsley 

Cow parsley leaves

and the gross leaves of Hogweed (yet to flower)

Hogweed leaves

All three of these plants are in the family Apiaceae producing their flowers in an umbrella-shaped structure known as an umbel.

Tree flowers

 White confetti on the path?

No, these are fallen petals from the blooming hawthorn - the may blossom

Most of the blackthorn is over, so I'm guessing that this bush is a wild plum.

White seems to be the seasonal colour.  Here below we have bird cherry, with white plumes of blossom almost like buddleia.

And rowan trees also produce white bunches of flowers, but you can distinguish them by the different leaves.

Soon we shall have the large flat creamy white flower heads on the elder bushes.  Just buds at the moment, waiting to burst.

  But the big old forest trees are often less showy.  The dangling flowers of sycamore, for example, are a greeny yellow.

If you get the chance of a close look - the flowers are usually up in the light and out of reach - notice that the 'helicopters' are already forming on the upper flowers in the spray, with the lower flowers being male and soon to drop off.

Growth spurt

Our two horse chestnuts burst into life in April. All last year they built up their strength and stored it over winter in a 'sticky bud'  ready to shoot out in spring.

You could see the open scales of the bud like an open hand.  

After this spring extravaganza they will not extend much more.  The tree will just prepare for NEXT spring.   

Now fully open.

First two photos taken 18/04/2019; third photo 09/05/2019

The two horse chestnut, or conker, treelets are in the top meadow where you can also find several self seeded oak trees, which we have surrounded with stakes to help us avoid mowing them off.

There is also one Sweet Chestnut, which is very small but looks pretty healthy and vigorous after many years of standing still. 

It only superficially resembles the horse chestnut and they are not related.  You can compare the leaves which are born singly, not like the spreading fingers of the horse chestnut leaf.

New leaves

 At the end of sycamore twigs the new leaves and the pendulous flowers emerge together.

As with poplars and walnuts, maples like sycamore produce coppery leaves at first until the chlorophyll gets into production.  

 Others, like beech, produce bright green leaves straight away

While hazel leaves start green but often with a dark reddish patch in the middle of their new leaves for a week or so.

Ramsons

We only have a few plants of Ramsons or Wild Garlic at Filnore  ..  ..  .. 

..  ..  ..  but hopefully they will increase if we keep the canopy open.  

This photo was taken in a wood in Damery.

When I was recently at Orielton Field Centre in Pembrokeshire (teaching my annual course on Woodland Manangement for Conservation - plug, plug) we were given a risotto including wild garlic leaves and on another evenng, a salad with the flowers.  I noticed that the berries are particularly peppery.

BTW the Field Studies Council runs a lot of very good wildlife courses.  

Here is a link:  Field Studies Council

Jack by the Hedge

Garlic mustard is one of the few plants that has an onion smell 

without belonging to the Allium genus.

You can see that it is in the cabbage family (Brasicaceae formerly Cruciferae) 

because each flower has those four petals arranged in a cross.

It's more folksy name of Jack-by-the-Hedge is well deserved.  Each plant stands up stiff and straight alongside hedges and roads.

 Standing in a row like so many soldiers on parade.

I mentioned a short time ago that Lady's Smock was a foodplant for the orange tip butterfly's caterpillars; so is Jack-by-the-Hedge.

Cowslips

Where the coarse, long grass and brambles have been mown off in the cowshed field, there has been a resurgence of cowslips. There used to be lots here but they have been keeping a low profile underneath all the other growth.

Can you see them?

Here we are a bit closer.

We also have more than usual in the pylon field

This is why we mow the long grass.  When the spring flowers like cowslips and campion have gone over we hope to have it cut again, staggered over the three months of June, July and August.

Red Campion on display now at FW.