Five easy trees to identify

Big trees in Thompson’s Park, Cardiff, in early March

For a few years now I have had the ambition of identifying trees in winter, when they have no leaves so other means are needed. I think I am now getting somewhere. For starters, here are five major “native” trees in Thompson’s Park, Canton, Cardiff, a park I have adopted to study for the year. I also draw some similarities with trees seen previously in other parks.

1. COMMON BEECH – FAGUS SYLVATICA

An old beech in Thompson’s Park

Beeches are usually easy. They often have fallen leaves all around.

Beech leaves on the ground in Bute Park, Cardiff, January 2015

Sometimes leaves hang on to the branches.

Leaves hanging on to a beech tree in Thompson’s Park in March 2016

Even more obvious are the empty fruit cases.

Fruit cases having released their seeds (beech mast)

But even without these clues, the bark of the beech is distinctive, smooth and grey.

Beech bark, Thompson’s Park, February 2016

Wet beech bark, Bute Park, January 2016

The branches also have a certain angularity to them.

Beech in Bute Park, January 2015

Beech in Thompson’s Park, March 2016

I’ve said these trees are “native” to Britain, but I see from Wikipedia that recent evidence suggests beech was introduced to England about 4,000 years ago, brought by Neolithic people, who used the nuts for food.

2. HORSE CHESTNUT – AESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM

Big horse chestnut in Thompson’s Park, March 2016

I always think horse chestnuts were introduced by the Romans, but I am wrong, that was sweet chestnuts. In fact, according to the Forestry Commission, conker trees were introduced from the Balkans as late as the 17th century, as ornamental trees.

So when Longfellow wrote “Under a spreading chestnut-tree
the village smithy stands” in 1842, chestnut trees weren’t as long established as I imagined. Unless it WAS a sweet chestnut, Castanea sativa. Not the same, somehow.

Horse chestnut trunk in Thompson’s Park

I am now pretty good at recognising the sinewy, often twisted trunks of horse chestnut trees.

Higher up the same tree

Another chestnut trunk in Llandaff Fields, in June 2014

Dead chestnut leaflets on the ground in Thompson’s Park, March 2016

If there are no leaves around, the most identifiable feature of the horse chestnut is probably the brown “sticky buds”.

Sticky bud in early March

Sticky bud opening to reveal the leaves on a Cardiff riverbank chestnut, mid March 2016

Up in the branches of the Thompson’s Park chestnut was something like a blue kite

3. LIME OR LINDEN – TILIA CORDATA

Lime tree in Thompson’s Park, February 2016

In the past year I have at last worked out how to identify lime trees in winter. It all seems to be in the reddish sprouty twigs around the base and elsewhere on the trunk.

Sprouty twigs

This particular lime has something growing among the sprouts. I think it may be elder, but maybe I will keep an eye on it to see if I am right or wrong

In Bute Park the council gardeners cut back the twigs

Looking up at the lime in Thompson’s Park

I have called this a Tilia Cordata, a small-leaved lime, but it could also be a Tilia Platyphyllos or large-leaved lime, or even a cross between the two, Tilia x europa, sometimes called the common lime. We shall see when the leaves come out. While the small-leaved lime is native to Britain I think the other limes started off as ornamental trees here.

4. OAK – QUERCUS ROBUR

Oak in Thompson’s Park, March 2016

I don’t have many images of this particular oak, yet I know it’s an oak. The shape of this archetypal English tree is in some way what we think of as “tree shaped”. The bark is also distinctive.

The trunk of the oak is evenly patterned

Oaks are twisty and this is a broken branch on the same tree

In case I had any doubt, I could just about spot a dry leaf up in the branches when I first saw the oak in January 2016

I have discovered in recent months that there are very many species of oak, but I am hoping this is a simple one, Quercus robur, the English oak or pedunculate oak, which is native to Britain.

The featured oak viewed from the other side

I almost forgot to mention that tip about oaks and cherries having clustered terminal buds. I couldn’t capture those on this big featured tree, but here are the buds on the tree I am following this year, which I also believe to be an oak of some sort, but maybe not a Quercus robur…

Clustered terminal buds

5. ENGLISH SYCAMORE – ACER PSEUDOPLATANUS

Sycamore in Thompson’s Park, February 2016

The name “sycamore” causes much confusion. The English sycamore is a maple (Acer), while the American sycamore is a plane (Platanus). The sycamore mentioned in the Bible is probably the fig-mulberry (Ficus sycomorus), now often called “sycomore” with an “O” to clarify things (as if it does!)

To me the main diagnostic feature of the sycamore is its bark. Not quite as patchy as the plane, but nontheless pretty rugged.

Bark of the sycamore in Thompson’s Park

This patch is particularly rough

Bark of a London plane (Platanus × acerifolia) in Bute Park

Sturdy trunks of sycamore

There were no winged seeds or hand-shaped leaves on the ground around this tree I believe to be a sycamore. Perhaps they blow away too easily or rot down too quickly. But I think the leaf-buds look like those on the small sycamore in my garden…

Sycamore buds in Thompson’s Park, March 2016

The sycamore in my garden is ahead of the one in Thompson’s Park

The sycamore is another very common tree in the UK – but it is native to central and eastern Europe. It was probably introduced to Britain in the 15th century, although Wikipedia suggests it might have been here as early as the sixth or seventh century, either naturally or introduced, as there is an old Scots Gaelic name for it.

There, I have put my tree-spotting reputation on the line. I will be visiting the park again soon, and will know for sure if I have identified these five trees correctly!

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