pumpkinstrokemarrow

Trundling around more or less the same route yesterday, I happened to notice the decaying white fluff on the stretch between the Wells and Wheelers Lane. Looking up, found that the offending trees were in leaf and that I could reach one. So I took the liberty of abstracting a leaf from this site of special scientific interest (on which more below).

Back home to consult FIL, who whips out his trusty book of trees, in which the leaves of common trees are illustrated in such a way that you can flip through them very quickly, resulting in a hit on the aspen. Not liking to trust to FIL's trusty book, get out my miniature Polunin for confirmation. Which it does in a surprising way. I had heard of the phrase 'trembling like an aspen' (see, for example, Henry IV Part II, Act 2, Scene 4, Lines 106-7), but had not realised that this was the result of the leaf stalk being flattened, more like linguine than spaghetti. This flattening allows the leaf to tremble in an attractive way when you hold the end of the stalk and blow on the leaf. The leaf abstracted did this, so I think I can register a confirmed vegetable tweet.

Polunin went on to mention the white fluff and to say that the aspen is usually found on marginal land in cold climates. The ones in Epsom must be strays.

Quite impressed by the illustration despite the fact that the leaf had more or less dried out by the time I thought of scanning it, having been preserved overnight inside a folded sheet of paper. Incidentally, the flattening of the stalk is visible just before it joins the leaf, on the enlarged version you get by clicking on the thing.

Not so impressed earlier on my trundle, to hear the sounds of the chain saw gang wafting across the common as another chunk of common woodland bit the dust. Or rather, was converted to saw dust. The irritating notices pinned up along the path explained that the grail of the day was the Common Heath Slug (CHS), an animal close to extinction in this part of England as a result of loss of habitat. Common as muck up north, but who would want to have to go up there? The CHS is not particularly interesting or attractive in real life but is much more impressive close up at night on their CHS web cam site (http://www.epsomcommon.commonheathslug.org.uk). The fighting among males for females is much more fun than 'Midsomer Murders' and much more likely to be on when you fancy a spot of TV. Must get around to creating and erecting some rival notices. Must get the save the trees vote out in time for the gang's AGM.

PS: for once a glitch in the usually smooth running Google advertising machine. On posting this blog he thought to tell me about a gang called Trees-R-Us, but supplied an improper URL. Lots of people of this name around the world. Judging from the URL he did supply, I believe he meant this lot: http://trees-r-us.biz/. Let's hope they are better at trees than they are at site construction.