At last the hornbeam fruits are changing colour…
Amazing to think this is my tenth blog post about the hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) I am following in Llandaff Fields, Cardiff. Thanks again to Lucy Corrander for setting up her Loose and Leafy tree-following project.
I visited on October 2, at the end of a long, dry, mild month. But I knew cold, wet and windy weather was coming, so I had hoped to return a week later to see what change that would have brought. Sadly I didn’t make it, so the sunny-day pictures are all I have for now…
This time I returned to a first-thing-in-the-morning visit, having been disappointed when I went at the shady end of the day in September.
The approach – the hornbeam is in the distance, between a sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) and a lime (Tilia cordata) tree…
That’s it, on the left – the big rusty tree on the right is a horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum)…
There you go – the hornbeam is the lollipop-shaped tree…
As usual I scoured the ground around the tree for anything interesting…
The dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) flower close to the ground here because of regular mowing…
I think this is a seagull feather…
A gorgeous fallen maple leaf from the tree next to the hornbeam…
The hornbeam still seemed to be resolutely green, though, apart from perhaps one yellow fruit?
A closer look at the pale fruit pictured at the top of this post…
At the time I thought this was genuinely the only fruit I could see. Here is a general view…
A mass of green leaves…
But when I was processing the pictures I had a closer look…
Somewhere high in the tree were lots of brown and yellow fruits…
I had previously been watching the small hornbeam growing over the pavement I walk along every day and that one seemed full of fruits…
Hornbeam fruits in a roadside tree – this is just an iPhone snapshot…
But back to the older tree in the fields…
There was an occasional golden bough…
Mostly the hornbeam looked no different from the way it did in spring
The dappled sunlight fell at a low angle across the lichen and moss on the bark…
The hornbeam’s old, familiar trunk…
This hole seems to get bigger every time I visit, and in the middle are grooves as if it has been pecked or chiseled with rodent front-teeth…
One thing I have learnt is how gentle the hornbeam is, compared to the beech I first mistook it for. The leaves are so much finer in their veining and texture…
A delicate fallen hornbeam leaf…
I dare say that many more leaves have fallen or been ripped off in the wet and windy week since I visited – and by November will there be ANY left?
Bye for now…
The Squirrelbasket 
You are doing well with your following and have given me a much needed nudge to produce a tree post next month. I love your description of the hornbeam being a gentle tree.
Thank you!
Good luck with that. I have to say this year of following my hornbeam has changed my life! I never bothered to visit these fields before, even though they are so near to where I live, but now I hope I will never stop…
I am loving your blog at the moment – the Stonehenge post was a pleasant surprise!
All the best 🙂
Lovely photos. Your tree looks delightful
Thank you. Yes! I think I will follow it forever now.
I’m so pleased you are getting on well with your new best friend Fan!
Take care 🙂
Now we are following a hole as well as a tree! If it’s growing bigger as the months go by, maybe we’ll one day see right inside the tree.
I used to have a phone camera with a fixed beam (instead of a flash) for taking pictures in the dark. It was great. I could stick it through a hole right into the trunk of a tree. The pictures showed what I would never have seen otherwise. My proper camera isn’t anywhere near as easily balanced as that old phone and . . . why don’t more cameras have fixed lights instead of flash attached? The fruit of the hornbeam is surprising. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens when seeds spill out.
Sadly the hole is quite high up – and I don’t think I am going to be doing any clambering…
I do find phone lights useful – I once used one when I dropped my cutlery on the floor in a dark restaurant.
That fixed light on cameras is a great idea – maybe you should patent it!
I don’t know that I am going to get much pleasure out of those seeds. I picked one fruity thing off the little hornbeam on the street the other day, intending to nibble a nutlet. But it was VERY hard! I’m also starting to think the way you put it is correct, the nutlets “spill out” looking like pips, unlike sycamores with winged seeds, where they go floating around whole.
All the best 🙂
It is a grand tree. It’s growing hole reminds me of these lines from Wendell Berry’s poem “The Sycamore”:
There is no year it has flourished in that has not harmed it…It bears the gnarls of its history healed over…
Nice one! I must look up the rest of that poem, as I like sycamores.
I suppose trees are a bit like people, bearing the scars of life.
By the way, I particularly liked that chicken of the woods fungus you featured the other day. I shared it on Twitter.
Best wishes 🙂
Liking your tree, still need to find my self a Hornbeam , great set of photos.
I’ve just been over to your blog to see your apple tree – wonderful things going on over there!
I didn’t actually “find” my hornbeam – it found me and I didn’t even recognise what it was until the catkins came out…
Best wishes 🙂
What a wonderful blog! I have a remnant of ancient woodland a quarter of a mile from my house, with plenty of Hornbeams….I must pay closer attention. Thank you!
Thank you ever so for saying such nice things!
I am now following your blog – which looks like “my kinda blog”.
I am a bit overwhelmed by the idea of “plenty of hornbeams”, as I have seen (or at least identified) only two in my whole life!
All the best 🙂