Download Identifying features of common trees in Duchess Wood

Identifying features of common trees in Duchess Wood
English Oak Quercus Robur (Pedunculate Oak)
Shape: Heavy, spreading and twisting branches make a broad crown. Foliage in ‘clusters’.
Height: to 38 m
Bark: Grey; short, deep, knobbly ridges.
Shoots: Grey
Buds: Orange-brown oval buds; alternate along the shoot with a cluster of buds at the shoot-tip.
Leaves: irregular deep lobes with 2 tiny lobes at the base (auricles) flank the short (4 to 10 mm) stalk. Small
veins extend towards the deep, narrow sinuses between each lobe.
Flowers: Curtains of yellow male catkins as orange leaves unfold. Female flowers are very tiny and grow
along the shoot.
Fruit: acorns often paired on a 5 to 12 mm stalk (peduncle) – acorns not produced every year in an effort to
limit populations of acorn-predators.
Where does not like to grow: marshy, chalky, or very light soils.
General information: Supports a greater variety of leaf-eating insects than any other tree.
Sessile Oak (Quercus petracea)
Shape: cleaner and less twiggy that an English Oak; larger, glossier leaves that are evenly spread.
Height: Often taller (up to 42 m) than English Oak.
Bark: As English Oak; can be more shallowly scaly.
Shoots: As English Oak.
Buds: Tend to have more scales than English Oak.
Leaves: with regular, rather shallow lobes; main veins hairy underneath at first and generally only running to
lobe tips. Base broadly tapered (only sometimes and faintly showing the backward-pointing auricles of the
English Oak); on a 12 to 20 mm stalk.
Flowers: As English Oak.
Fruit: acorns sit on the twigs with short stalks or none (sessile).
Where does not like to grow: avoids heavy/alkaline soils.
Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus)
Shape: A huge heavy dome, twisting short twigs on straight limbs
Height: to 38 m
Bark: pinkish-grey, stout
Shoots: Greenish grey-pink, stout.
Buds: Big and green; in opposite pairs with a single bud at the end of the shoot.
Leaves: Large (to 18 x 26 cm on young trees) 5 different sized pointed lobes with many coarse, round-tipped
teeth; dull-dark green; orange-brown in autumn; often blackened by Tar-spot fungus.
Flowers: Yellow-green, on 6 to 12 cm tails; the keys hang from a central stem.
Fruit: the classic paired, winged ‘helicopters’ or otherwise known as keys.
Likes to grow: rich, heavy soils
General information: supports a high insect biomass, but the dense canopy prevents much growing on the
ground beneath.
Common ash (Fraxinus excelsior)
Shape: very open; slender, cleanly curving limbs on an often long bole (main stem of the tree). The silvery
shoots may droop then curl up like branches of a chandelier.
Height: to 30 m.
Bark: Pale grey, developing a usually regular network of shallow criss-cross ridges.
Shoots: Grey.
Buds: Black, oval in opposite pairs with a single bud at the end of the shoot.
Leaves: In opposite pairs; 9 to 13 irregularly shaped, serrated leaflets (the side ones stalkless), dull above and
white-downy under the lower midrib, on a slightly downy main stalk; the last native tree into leaf and often the
first one to go bare.
Flowers: pinky-catkin-like made up of lots of small flowers.
Fruit: bunches keys, ripen biscuit-brown.
Where it likes to grow: anywhere but light sandy soils.
General information: pioneer species.
Downy Birch (Betula pubescens)
Shape: twiggy; the fine branches look like a fine mesh from below, scarcely weep.
Height: to 28 m.
Bark: Purple-red when young, taking long than silver birch to whiten. Old trunks have bands of grey, but
little sharp vertical patterning. Can have black triangular patterning.
Shoots: Softly hairy
Buds: alternately arranged; big, long, sharp buds.
Leaves: Rounded-triangular, single-toothed on downy stalks.
Flowers: Catkins (the yellow male catkin is larger than the green female catkin)
Fruit: Looks like a fatter, stouter version of the male catkin (green)
Where it likes to grow: abundant everywhere on poor or damp, non-chalky soils.
Silver Birch (Betula pendula)
Shape: Twigs soon weep, like fountains; fine branches.
Height: to 30 m.
Bark: orange-red when young, soon white with rough black arrows/diamonds.
Shoots: Slender, hairless; purple-brown with little white warts especially in the sun.
Buds: alternately arranged; big, long, sharp buds.
Leaves: Hairless on hairless stalks; very triangular with double teeth up the straight sides.
Flowers: Catkins (the yellow male catkin is larger than the green female catkin); male? catkins remain at the
end of the shoot throughout winter.
Fruit: Looks like a fatter, stouter version of the male catkin (green)
Where it likes to grow: prefers sandy soils.
Goat Willow (Salix caprea)
Shape: domed; weak arching branches in usually a single trunk.
Height: to 22 m.
Bark: grey: at first banded with small diamond shaped pits; soon with rather shallow, crisscross ridges.
Shoots: grey (red/yellow in sun), thicker than most willows, soon hairless.
Buds: alternately arranged on shoot; rather rounded, downy.
Leaves: not more than twice as long as broad with the abrupt tip bent sideways; dark, wrinkly, a very fine
grey-green felt beneath; few or no teeth.
Flowers: precede the leaves. Male ‘pussies’ are gold; female flowers are silver and quickly shed fluffy seeds.
Where it likes to grow: abundant except on the lightest soils.
Grey Sallow (Salix cinerea)
Shape: bushy, seldom long trunked.
Height: to 15 m.
Bark: Grows darker, shallower ridges than goat willow.
Shoots: minutely hairy for a year; 2-year twigs ridged under their bark.
Buds: alternately arranged on shoot; minutely hairy for a year.
Leaves: Usually much smaller than goat willow; 2 to 3 times long as broad and broadest half-way up; a fine
felt beneath plus odd rusty hairs under the veins. Semi-circular stipules (appendage, usually leafy at the base of
the leaf or flower stalk) are common.
Flowers: starting later than goat willow, the pussies are slightly smaller.
Where it likes to grow: as abundant as goat willow except on dry sites.
Common Alder (Alnus glutinosa)
Shape: An approximate spire when young; old trees can be broad, with twisting oak-like branches, but in
woodlands retain long straight boles.
Height: to 28 m.
Bark: Brown – pale lenticels, then closely and deeply square-plated, the verticals predominating.
Shoots: hairless
Buds: alternately arranged on stalks. Mauve and club-shaped (sometimes dull and greyer).
Leaves: Dark, leathery and raquet-shaped; the end never pointed and often indented.
Flowers: Male catkins densely wine-red in winter.
Fruit: from cones. Brown, spent cones can remain on tree in winter.
Where it likes to grow: dominant in bogs and on river-banks.
Common Hazel (Corylus avellana)
Shape: usually mulit-stemmed.
Height: old stems to 15 m.
Bark: often burnished bronze when young, but harsh to the touch and finely peeling; old stems pale brown
with some shallow, flat ridges.
Shoots: pale green-brown with long rather harsh hairs.
Buds: green, fat, oval.
Leaves: soft, hairy, floppy; nearly round (to 12 cm), with a sudden sharp point; on short (1 cm) long, hairy
stalks.
Flowers: Yellow male catkins expand and open in late-winter. Female flowers are small and associated with
bud.
Fruit: nuts ripen early in autumn; sheathed in shucks about their own length.
Where it likes to grow: abundant as a woodland understorey and in hedges, except on poor or water-logged
soils.
Common Beech (Fagus sylvatica)
Shape: in a woodland, often with a long, slightly sinuous trunk but readily growing a huge dome on strong
smooth limbs.
Height: to 40 m.
Bark: silver-grey with slight horizontal etchings; some trees develop shallow or rugged criss-crossing ridges.
Shoots: slender, grey, and zig-zag.
Buds: alternately arranged on shoot; torpedo-shaped, 2 cm, copper-grey colour, spreading at 60o.
Leaves: to 10 cm, with odd, tiny distant teeth; oval-shaped; hair-fringed and silky all over as they unfold; 5 to
9 vein pairs.
Flowers: clusters of tiny flowers.
Fruit: nuts in prickly husks on 2 cm stalks. Known as beech-mast.
Where it likes to grow: often dominant on mineral soils, but dislikes wet ground.
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)
Shape: spire-like in plantations; open-grown trees are more rounded.
Height: to 40 m.
Bark: red-grey scales at first; the papery orange-pink bark intensifies with age in the top half of the tree, while
the lower half grows big papery-surfaced mauve plates or sometimes rugged purple ridges.
Shoots: clear green-brown; hairless.
Buds: with some papery-white scales just free at their tips.
Leaves: in pairs, short (5 to 7 cm), thicker and often more twisted than other 2-needle pines.
Cones: slim; 5 to 8 cm.