LIME SPINNERS

On a windy day these items came spinning down gracefully from the tree above.

 

To spread its seeds as widely as possible the lime tree supplies each little bunch of seeds with a bract that acts as an autogyro spinning the seeds away from the mother tree. each bract may carry from one  up to five fruits.

Although there is a row of about ten mature limes beside the old railway wall at Tesco, Thornbury, this tree seems to be the only one that is fruiting.

RAT

The remains of a Brown Rat (Rattus norvegicus) 

Although I worry that Polo, our cat, might be catching birds, she does seem to concentrate on bank voles, woodmice and the occasional rat.

The long scaly tail is the best clue to the identity of this rodent.

Not much else to go on.  Although they are part of the native wildlife scene, brown rats are not desirable in the home or garden.

Brown rats can produce up to 5 litters of 12 young in a year.

So Go Polo Go.

 

ASH GALLS

The ash keys on some trees are an attractive yellow contrasting with the green foliage. 

A closer look revealed several small brown 'cauliflowers' on the flower/seed stalks

These are cauliflower galls caused be a tiny mite, Aceria fraxinivora.

 

CRANE FLY

September is peak crane fly time.  I remember them appearing in the top corners of the tent when we went camping.  They are attracted to light so they often come into houses at this time of year.  They are quite harmless.

The one in the photo is a male; you can tell because the end of the body is blunt - square even.  Females have a pointed end to the abdomen; this is so that they can deposit their eggs in the soil.

All flies have only two pairs of wings unlike most insects which have four.  Instead of the second pair they have two drumstick-like organs called halteres which help with balance in flight.  The halteres on common crane flies are particularly large and visible.  In the photo below I managed to get one of the halteres in focus - almost.

Crane flies only live for 10 - 15 days so they have to get on with the business of mating and laying eggs a.s.a.p.   You may see a pair joined end to end and when the female is laying eggs she bounces up and down on her spindly legs as she pushes her ovipositor into the soil.  The legs are often damaged or missing, which doesn't seem to worry them.

 The larvae are called leather jackets and are a menace because they feed on the roots of grasses and other plants.  They are, however, an important source of food for hedgehogs, badgers, foxes and birds.  If your lawn gets dug up it may mean that someone has been after leather jackets.  What look like two eyes are actually breathing spiracles; the head is at the other end but they don't need eyes anyway as they live their whole life underground.

Photo: G Bradley on www.uksafari.com

Crane flies are also known as daddy longlegs but don't confuse them with cobweb spiders or harvestmen, which are also called daddy longlegs.

 

PLANT DESTROYER

The dark stains on the trunk of this alder tree are probably a symptom of a Phytophthora alni infection. You can see that the branches are dying because the bark and cambium have been killed.

  

Phytophthoras are organisms a bit like fungi but different.  They ae sometimes referred to as water moulds.   There are at least 200 known species. Phytophthora kernoviae produces similar symptoms in beech trees and Phytophthora infestans causes potato blight.  There is almost no known cure or antidote so they are indeed plant destroyers, which is what Phytophthora means.

 

HONEY FUNGUS

Honey fungus fruiting bodies appear in the autumn and are killed off by the first frosts, but the fungus lives on in the roots of the affected tree.  A serious infection as on the birch tree below will appear around the base of the trunk and on the ground over infected roots.  It is the cambium of the roots that it attacks first, opening them up to decay.

The brackets start off as small honey-coloured button mushrooms, turning brown as they increase in size.  The tell-tale signature is the ring or collar near the top of the stem, just visible in the photo below left on the top left individual.  If you are worried you have honey fungus, look underneath the cap.  If there are no rings on the toadstools it is not honey fungus.

  

The last four images show the degradation over time of the toadstools on an old

 plum tree stump.  Finishing as a black gooey mess.

 

MERIPILUS

This is the fruiting body or bracket produced by the Giant Polypore, Meripilus giganteus.  A mass of overlapping fronds, which may be up to 60cm across.

  

This fungus favours beech trees, though it will occasionally appear on oak, plane or monkey puzzle trees.  It appears at ground level or even above roots some distance from the tree.

On beech it renders the wood at the base of the trunk brittle and is therefore rather dangerous.  Once the brackets appear, the decay has been going some time and a strong wind could bring the tree down, especially, as with the tree in the picture, if the winter wind resistance is increased by a lot of ivy. 

The red goblin gives an idea of scale.

 

MINING HAZEL

Minute leaf miners scribed this pattern on half a hazel leaf.  

They are the larvae of a very small micro-moth, the hazel leaf miner, (Stigmella microtheriella), with a wingspan of 3-4mm.

Photo: Stephen Thorpe, uk.inaturalist.org

 I wonder why they either couldn't or wouldn't cross the main central vein.

SHAGGY ROTTER

  

This fungus, Inonotus hispidus grows on ash and apple and walnut trees but also on cherry apparently as in the photo above from Marianne Mogendorff.  

The photos below are of it growing on apple.

  

Actually, of course, this is only the fruiting body, a fungus's equivalent to a flower.  The main living part of the fungus is a web of white fungal threads inside the tree.  This fungus makes the wood brittle and trees can lose branches unexpectedly.

  

  

After about ten days the bracket turns from bright orange to brown and the bristles on the top show why it is called the shaggy bracket.  

 

Gradually after it has shed trillions of spores it begins to turn black and may persist on the tree for a year or more, warning of brittle branches.

 

BOX MOTH

I've noticed several of these striking black and white moths flitting round the garden when their roosting spot was disturbed.  They're not in my comprehensive moth book because they are a fairly recent arrival to Europe.  Native to South-east Asia, they were first recorded in the UK in Kent in 2007 and have spread throughout southern England.  

This is not such good news because this is the Box Moth, whose green and black caterpillars can defoliate box bushes, hedges and topiary. 

Photo: Vlad Proklov

If you notice silk webbing over your box plants, it might be a good idea to investigate.  The larvae also use silk to knit a couple of box leaves together for a winter retreat.

 

BERRIES

While out blackberrying we were impressed by the richness of the autumn fruit.

Rose Hips

Haws on the hawthorn

The tempting but poisonous berries of the climber Bryony.

 

DRYAD'S SADDLE

A dryad is a wood nymph and this fungus (Polyporus squamosus) is known as Dryad's Saddle, clearly a place where you might catch one having a rest.

The upper surface is covered in brown scales on a yellow background, but you can't see the scales if it's too high up the tree.

In the images below you can see last year's bracket or 'fruiting body' near ground level.

  

 

THE BLACK SPOT

Tar spot is a fungus that is almost exclusively found on sycamore leaves towards the end of the summer.

It does no harm to the tree as there is still plenty of green leaf to photosynthesise.

I think it's rather attractive, bringing a bit of variety to the tree's appearance.

 

BASTARD SERVICE

The Bastard Service tree (Sorbus thuringiaca) is related to whitebeams and rowans.

This is its moment of glory when it is covered in bright red berries.

The leaves are distinctive, rather like an oak leaf with the lowest lobes cut free from the rest of the leaf.

  

 

WILLOW HERBS

This frequent visitor to my garden is the weedy Broad-leaved Willow Herb (Epilobium montanum).

The small pale pink flowers have a white cross in the centre, which is the stigma. 

It soon goes to seed and so spreads to every bit of bare soil.

Its big cousin, the Great Willow Herb (Epilobium hirsutum) also has the white cross in the centre of each flower.  We have plenty of these at Filnore Woods.

 And there is a big area of Rosebay Willow Herb (Chamerion angustifolium) near post 14 but it is in a different genus and quite different in structure