Take a look at the
leaves on the trees around you. At this
time of year the leaves are in their best condition and you'll be able to spot
many more tree species than you thought you had in your local woodland. Okay, so this is not exactly a
flower-pollination related blog, but upon visiting a local woodland nature
reserve in Reading yesterday just before the afternoon's thunderstorms hit, we
were struck by the variety of trees that we were effectively ignoring, instead
paying attention to the flowering brambles and occasional hoverfly daring to
approach the blooms. We found hazel and
lime next to each other – allowing us the opportunity to examine the
differences between the two species' leaves. Lime leaves are far more papery
and smooth whilst hazels have much more deeply serrated edges.
The photos below
show a selection of what we found with the species being field maple (Acer campestre), elm (Ulmus sp.), alder (Alnus sp.; on the top row) and lime (or “linden”, Tilia sp.), hazel (Corylus avellana) and beech (Fagus
sylvatica; on the bottom row).
We
also found rowan (or mountain ash; Sorbus
aucuparia), ash (Fraxinus excelsior),
and elder (Sambucus nigra), shown below.
Go down to your local woodland and read the leaves in a dry
spell this summer!
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