British Trees

• True Native? Yes, from early boreal period (12,000-10,000 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Deciduous broadleaf and very hardy but shade-intolerant. Thrives in dry woodlands, downs, and heathlands for their open spaces.
• Height: Up to 30m, can live to around 60-90 years, but many don't due to stress of competition.
• Leaves: Light green, small, and triangular with a toothed edge. Turn brilliant yellow in autumn.
• Flowers: Monoecious, with both male and female catkins (female are smaller, shorter, green, and erect).
• Fruits: Once pollinated (by wind), female catkins thicken and become a dark crimson. These disperse on the wind in autumn.
• Visuals: Silver-white bark, which becomes black and rugged toward the base. Forms dark, diamond-shaped fissures indicative of age overtime. It forms a light canopy with drooping branches. Twigs are smooth with small dark warts.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Bark is white year-round, with rough twigs. Very distinct!

Value

Birch trees of both kinds were the first trees to colonise England during the boreal period, when England was still a peninsula connected to mainland Europe (around 12-10,000BC!) As birch trees form a light, open canopy, they make a great habitat for rich understories full of grasses, mosses, wood anemones, bluebells, sorrel, and violets. Although long gone from the UK, birch woodlands were a beautiful and striking habitat. They can still be found in places like Canada.

Birch is considered a pioneer species for its ability to quickly colonise barren or undeveloped land. It was essential to the development of British ecology, but due to its shade intolerance is now out-competed by many other species. While the birch woodland is no longer present in the UK, birch trees can be found throughout our mixed broadleaf woodland.

The silver birch provides food and habitat for over 300 insect species, its leaves being the larval food of many moths such as the buff tip, angle-shades, the pebble hook-tip, and Kentish glory.

Mythology

In early Celtic mythology, the birch resembled renewal and purification. To this day birch "brooms" (the birch besom) are used to purify gardens. In Scottish Highland folklore, it was also symbolic of love and fertility.

• True Native? Yes, from early boreal period (12,000-10,000 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Mostly found in north-western Scotland. Native to cooler regions, and can be found in ancient woodlands or heathlands, as well as well-drained soil near rivers, in clonal colonies (all genetically identical, from a single parent tree!). Shade-intolerant and prefers moist soil.
• Height: Up to 25m, can live around 50-60 years old -- up to 150 in western America!
• Leaves: Round with irregular, blunt teeth. Flattened stalks flexible at blade, which makes the leaves flutter in the breeze. Young leaves are coppery before green, and turn yellow or red in autumn before they fall.
• Flowers: Dioecious, so catkins of male and female grow on separate trees. These appear in March-April. They are very furry!
• Fruits: Female catkins ripen and release tiny fluffy seeds during summer.
• Visuals: Bright leaves that flutter even in a light breeze, hence the name 'Quaking Aspen'. Bark is grey and often pitted wth diamond-shaped lenticels (pores). Older aspen tend to be covered in lichen, giving them the appearance of black bark. Dark brown, shiny, and slender twigs.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Very knobbly twigs, with spiralling buds closely pressed to the twig.

Value

Aspens were among the first pioneer species to colonise the UK, along with birch and sallow. These trees mostly occupied sheltered copses, which as a tree that forms clonal colonies, the aspen excelled in. Aspens are a preferred species of our native beaver, and its deadwood cavities provide great nesting habitats for birds. It attracts many insects including gall midges and the aspen hoverfly uniquely, which are a great food source for birds and ladybirds.

Mythology

In Greek, the aspen is named "aspis", meaning shield. This was a traditional use of its wood.

In Celtic mythology, the quaking leaves was believed to be the tree's means of communicating between this world and the next.

Aspens are historically linked to death and the underworld. It was believed a crown of aspen leaves would grant the power to safely visit the Underworld. They have been found in ancient burial mounds, and may have been included as a way to allow spirits of the dead to be reborn or otherwise return from the Underworld themselves.

• True Native? Yes, from early boreal period (12,000-10,000 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Deciduous broadleaf, found growing in woodland, hedgerows and scrub. Prefers open, damper ground e.g. beside watercourses.
• Height: Up to 10m, can live for 300 years.
• Leaves: Oval leaves, rather than long and thin like most willow, with felty coating on underside. Pointed tip that curls to one side.
• Flowers: Dioecious -- catkins develop in early spring, with males being furry, grey, and oval-shaped (resembling a cat's paws) while females are longer and green.
• Fruits: Female catkins develop into woolly seeds dispersed on wind. Most willows can self-propagate by lowering branches to the ground that develop their own roots.
• Visuals: Grey-brown bark with diamond-shaped fissures developing as they age. Hairy twigs at first, which become smooth and red-yellow in sunlight.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Greenish-brown, rounded, hairless buds, slightly pressed close to the twig.

Value

Sallow were one of the first four pioneer species to colonise the UK during the boreal period. During this period, most woodlands were found in sheltered areas, which usually followed watercourses into what are now our denes. Goat willow would have performed great alongside alder along these watercourses.

Their leaves are the fungal food of many moths, such as the sallow kitten, sallow clearwing, dusky clearwing, and lunar hornet clearwing, as well as being the main food plant for the purple emperor butterfly! Also, the provide an important early source of pollen and nectar for our pollinators. All of this bug activity makes them a great foraging spot for insectivores such as birds.

Mythology

In biblical times, all willows were related to celebration -- but in modern times, they are more heavily associated with mourning and sorrow. For instance, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia drowns near a willow tree.

It is believed to be the origin of the words witch, wicked, and Wiccan.

• True Native? Yes, from mid-Boreal period (10,000-8,700 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Deciduous broadleaf, often found on moist ground near watercourses. It thrives in damp and cool areas, such as marshes/carrs.
• Height: Up to 28m, can live to around 60 years.
• Leaves: Purple/grey leaf buds with long, racquet-shaped dark green leaves. These are leathery with serrated edges. The leaf tip is round and often indented.
• Flowers: Monoecious, with long male catkins and oval-shaped female catkins.
• Fruits: Once pollinated, female catkins become woody, tiny pine cones. These open to disperse seed via wind and their nearby watercourses.
• Visuals: Conical in shape, with dark and fissured bark often covered in lichen. Twigs have light-brown and spotted stems which turn red towards the top. New growths are sticky to the touch. Alders are the only deciduous tree to have both pine cones and catkins.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Female pine cone-like catkins, and purple twigs with orange markings.

Value

Carrs are often either made up of willow or alder. An alder carr can provide a great habitat for mosses and lichens. It also provides the larval food of species such as the alder kitten, and the blue-bordered carpet moth. Its catkins produce nectar earlier than other trees, and so is a good early source for pollinators.

• True Native? Yes, from late Boreal period (8,000-6,200 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Deciduous broadleaf, very common in the deciduous woodlands of southern/central Britain.
• Height: 20-40m
• Leaves: ~10cm long with smooth edges. Leaf burst occcurs in mid-May. They have almost no stem, and grow in bunches.
• Flowers: Long, yellow catkins for pollen distribution into the air.
• Fruits: Acorns on long stalks, with cupules (cup-shaped base of the acorn). Fallen acorns will sprout the following spring.
• Visuals: Forms a broad and spreading crown, with sturdy branches underneath.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Rounded buds in clusters, with more than three scales.

Value

All oaks are a huge boon to our native wildlife, supporting a huge amount of insects, which in turn are a food source for birds, for which its sturdy branches are also a great habitat. Its flower and leaf buds are larval food of purple hairstreak butterflies. In autumn, its acorns are a food source for red squirrels, badges, and deer. The rich leaf mould supports funghi and insects such as stag beetles and oakbug milkcaps. Holes and loose bark also provide great homes for small passerines such as the marsh tit or redstart, as well as bats!

• True Native? Yes, from late Boreal period (8,000-6,200 B.C.)
• Type/Location: Deciduous broadleaf, commonly found in hilly regions.
• Height: 20-40m, can live up to 1000 years although 600 is more typical.
• Leaves: Dark green and lobed, undulate margin. Longer stalks than the English Oak.
• Flowers: Monoecious, meaning male and female flowers are found on the same tree. Male are green catkins, and females are clusters of bracts that resemble red flower buds.
• Fruits: Female flowers develop into acorns. Named "sessile" (meaning stalkless) as these are directly attached to twigs at their base.
• Visuals: Grows more upright than the English Oak, with straighter branches, and leaves have longer stalks.

Seasonal ID

Winter: Rounded buds in clusters, with more than three scales.

Value

Supports over 257 species of insect, and supports more life than any other native tree species, even with its fallen leaves!