Trees, Fungi and Lichens

Bel's Wood in winter is a delight with the bracken flattened, trees without leaves and having done a bit of secateur work on the gorse, the whole site is navigable. Identifying trees without leaves or fruit or flowers is a challenge as they are mostly decidious but there are dead leaves still on the ground and bark and some of last year's fruit (hazel nut shells) are distinctive. So far I have identified the following:

Trees:
Blackthorn
Birch - silver birch and possibly downy birch
Broom
Gorse
Hazel
Holly
Sessile oaks
Yew trees
Willow (white)



                       Yew tree with gorse in flower               Downy birch
Sessile oak in the sunshine

Unidentified until spring

                         Silver birch                                     Holly 


                                                                        Willow

Fungus so far identified:-

Hoof fungus

Yellow brain
Wood ears
White jelly fungus


Wood ears

                                                Could be a lichen - need further investigation

           Hoof fungus - various







                    

                    White jelly or snow fungus                         Yellow brain fungus


Lichens

Foliose: 

- Cladoniaceae chloropaea 

- Oakmoss (evernia prunastri) 

- Parmotrema perlatum 

- Usnea subfloridana 

Leprose: 

- Opegrapha corticola

- Lepraria incana agg

Crustose



Foliose:

                                                           Oak moss


                                                            Cladoniaceae chloropaea 


                Leprose lichens


                                Opegrapha corticola                             Lepraria incana agg

                Usnea subfloridana                                   Parmotrema perlatum 

            Crustose lichens




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bluebells Thriving at Bel's Wood

Image
'Bluebells are one of the main biological indicators that scientists use to judge whether a spot is an ancient woodland. An ancient woodland is an area of woods that has been recorded on a map since the year 1600 CE. That’s approximately when maps started being more accurate, so we know that these areas have been filled with trees for approximately 400 years. They are relatively undisturbed by human development and, as a result, foster unique and complex communities of natural life.' (Hants  local  government website).  I have  a map including Bel's Wood dated 1895 (Ordnance Survey Map) and no woodland is showing. There are older maps online which also show that the land and it is always cleared of woodland. Wood would have been used at  Starnthwaite Mill nearby and there is evidence of coppicing of hazel trees in some areas where there is still patches of trees. The presence of bluebells growing on the land indicates that there was a mature woodland here once. ...
Read more

Bel's Wood becomes a wood

Image
Today, Friday 26th January 2024 is a good day.  The planters finished the task of planting 4,200 trees. The last couple of weeks has presented considerable challenges with snow, rain, wind and storms. They were unable to get to the wood this week until today when they still had to overcome some challenging road conditions in Ambleside. Thankfully the days are slightly longer and so they were able to get the final 700 trees into the ground and to protect them with tree guards.                          These are the recycled guards and take a bit longer to wrap around each tree and stake as they have less spring than the new ones. I helped out with a dozen to help get them over the finish line! The entrance is part of zone 1 & has been the final zone to be planted:-   No time to stand an admire the handy work though! Each of the trees needs a mulch mat and these were delivered earlier this week.     ...
Read more

Decisions, decisions......(new video added!)

Image
Having started with a high level plan of course leads to the need for more precise decisions - lots of them. Some of these decisions are not easy as they feel really important with long term consequences and I am new to all this. The more time I spend at Bel’s Wood the more I love it as it is but the purpose is to create a woodland with more trees (to capture carbon from the atmosphere) and support a wider biodiversity so that’s what I am going to do. Trees, trees, trees I have a few mature trees on the site - Cecelia (the sessile oaks) is stand out beauty. I have learned a new tree which I have only identified this spring - there are white beams across the plot. T he new leaves look like magnolia. I have also counted 6 rowan trees so far. These will flower and feed the bees, then produce lovely red berries & provide food for birds. White Beam                    Rowan Cecelia with leaves emerging  Wilhelmina...
Read more