Each month we will be highlighting a specific species which is particularly good to record during the month.
Broad-leaved trees in winter are our focus this time, and here are several distinctive ones to look out for:
Ash Fraxinus excelsior
A common species in many semi-natural ancient woodlands such as the
Hayley wood nature reserve. More interestingly, the practice of coppicing over the centuries had contributed towards the formation of large rings of coppiced ash stools and pollards. Some rings can be over 4m in diameter and exceed 800 years in age.
Beech Fagus sylvatica
The best examples locally are in the Beechwoods Nature reserve near Cambridge, but specimens can be found elsewhere
Common alder Alnus glutinosa
A tree of wet areas, riversides and other waterlogged ground, it has very distinctive cones which arepopular with some bird species through the winter.
Alder can be found in the
Fordham woods. The roots of this pioneer species have clusters of bright orange nodules which contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria that help alder survive in poor soils.
Pedunculate (English) oak Quercus robur
IN Cambridgeshire, more traditionally a tree of meadows and fields, it was widely planted in woodlands in the 19th century and can be found in many sites.
Wild service tree Sorbus torminalis
This species is has always been scarce. It is an indicator of ancient semi-natural woodlands and mature specimens can be found in the
Gamlingay and
Brampton wood nature reserves, although planted specimens do also occur.
How to recognise these trees in winter
This is done by the characteristics of bark (colour, roughness), twigs and buds, and often the shape of the whole tree can be very distinctive – a useful guide is produced by the field studies council