News from the world of trees 2018 #4

Here is another round-up of tree news articles from around the world. Click on each of the pictures if you would like to read the full stories.

Climate change is wiping out Africa’s ‘tree of life’

Baobab trees are a scientific wonder, once capable of living for thousands of years, but now becoming an endangered species, fears the Guardian…

Mystery of Poland’s ‘Crooked Forest’

Deep in the woods of the West Pomerania region of Poland, an entire section of trees bends at sharp angles near their bases, forming an odd and entrancing phenomenon, reports Science Alert…

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2018 tree following 5: Fruitful flowers

Buds of linden, June 5, 2018

It’s mid June and here in Cardiff the weather is living up to its summer promise, with many scorching-hot sunny days. But there is still a cooling north-easterly wind most days as I walk beside the Wharf (old Bute East Dock). And all at once the linden tree (Tilia) I am following is full of green flower buds.

Actually I thought they were the fruits, but as this tree seems to be running later than others I have seen, the flower buds have yet to open and the fruits will come later. I hope so, or else I have completely missed them!

To paraphrase Wikipedia, the small yellow-green hermaphrodite flowers of Tilia cordata are produced in clusters of five to 11 in early summer with a leafy yellow-green subtending bract and have a rich, heavy scent; the trees are much visited by bees to the erect flowers, held above the bract; this arrangement is different from that of the common lime Tilia × europaea where the flowers are held beneath the bract.

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Tree following link box for June 2018

Young ash leaves (Fraxinus excelsior) in early June

The tree-following link box has now closed for another month. To explore everyone’s updates, please go straight to the bottom of this post.

Summer has come at last to Cardiff, although the clear skies and hot sun are sometimes accompanied by a refreshing north-easterly breeze. I wonder how the seasons are changing where you are in the world…

If you are new to tree following, read all about the idea here.

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Reading Challenge update: Young voices

Three novels with young narrators

Around 18 months ago I “signed up” for the Reading Challenge on Shaz’s Jera’s Jamboree blog. It’s a way of getting out of your comfort zone of always reading the same sorts of books.

Over the course of 2016 to 2018 I am trying to tick off EVERY box in each section of the challenge. I am logging my progress here.

In this post I thought I would recommend three books I have read that are very different from each other but all narrated by young boys.

These are:
# The Goldfish Boy by Lisa Thompson (2017), about a boy with OCD who turns amateur detective, recommended on Jera’s Jamboree (here).

# Room by Emma Donoghue (2010), very loosely based on the case of Elizabeth Fritzl, held captive for 24 years and abused by her father, who gave birth to seven children by him. There have been several similar cases in the USA involving abduction by strangers, which are perhaps more relevant to Room.

# Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005), about a boy looking for answers after losing his father in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers.

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