Citizen Science event - April - Trees
On Saturday 29th April we held our first citizen science event of 2023. These events form part of our ‘Nature in Harmony’ ecology programme led by our intern each year, and are held once a month between April and September.
April’s session was all about trees, and intern Laura and session co-leader Harvey Sullivan led 10 participants on a walk around Harmony Woods. Harvey, a professional gardener, began by talking about how the common names we use for species can often be misleading. For example, sweet chestnut and horse chestnut trees have similar common names but are not related, which is reflected in their botanical names: Castanea sativa and Aesculus hippocastanum respectively. We need to look to their scientific names - which tell us the Family, Genus, and Species of an organism - for more information.
The focus of the session was on looking at key identification features for a range of native British trees and shrubs, including blackthorn, cherry, rowan, hazel, willow, silver birch, field maple, oak, lime, yew, hawthorn, dog rose, Scots pine, hornbeam, and dogwood.
A few select facts:
The Rosaceae (Rose) Family is the second-largest plant family in the world, containing thousands of species, including dog rose, apple, and rowan. They usually have toothed leaves, and flowers with 5 petals.
The difference between blackthorn and hawthorn: Blackthorn’s spiny branches are a black-grey colour, buds are found along the spines, it produces flowers before leaves (which are small and oval-shaped), and its fruit are dusty purple sloe berries. (Blackthorn is one of the first plants to blossom each spring, you can see it as dense frothy white clouds of blossom as early as February.) Hawthorn’s spiny branches are a brown colour, buds are found at the base of the spines, it produces leaves (which are larger than blackthorn and lobed) before flowers, and its fruit are clusters of small red berries.
There are only 3 native British species of conifer (cone-producing species): yew, juniper, and Scots pine. The bright red fruit of yew trees look like berries, but are in fact cones.
Participants were given feedback forms at the end. One wrote, “I really enjoyed today’s session. It was nice and relaxed with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and discuss what we have seen.” All of the participants felt their tree ID knowledge had improved, and many were interested in learning more about tree species and the interactions with the wider ecosystem.
If you would like to improve your tree identification skills and learn more about the species we have in this country, the Woodland Trust has an A-Z of British Trees on their website, and a related app you can use to try and identify trees you come across while out and about.
