10 Sunday Mar 2024
Tags
Goat willow, Grey willow, male willow catkins, Pussy willow, Salix caprea, Salix cinerea, willow catkins
It’s that time of year when pussy willow – the gorgeous male catkins of the Goat willow (Salix caprea) and Grey willow (Salix cinerea) – is gracing the trees.
In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that ‘Because so little else was in leaf or flowers at this early season [early Spring], sprays of sallow have frequently been used as “palm” to decorate churches at Eastertide.’
01 Friday Mar 2024
Posted in trees
Tags
Agrobacterium tumefaciens, British galls, Crown gall, gall on willow, pathogen-causing gall, plant pathogen, Rhizobium radiobacter
This is a strange one! I found some odd galls on a couple of willows (Salix species), large round lumpy masses around the base of the trunks, smaller lumpy growths further up the trunks and on the branches.
It turns out these are caused by a plant pathogen. I found a pdf on The British Society for Plant Pathology website, with the following explanation:
Rhizobium radiobacter is a soil-living, gram-negative, motile rod-shaped bacterium. It is a biotrophic pathogen that can alter the physiology and morphology of its host plant without killing it, resulting in tumourlike structures or galls. Prior to 2001, gall forming R. radiobacter was called Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
The pathogen enters the plant tissue through wounds, and the galls, also known as Crown galls, can be found on a huge variety of plant species. The one-page BSPP pdf has more information if you’re interested.
13 Tuesday Feb 2024
Tags
British moths, catkin miners, Epinotia tenerana, Hazel, larvae in Hazel catkins, moth larvae in catkins, Nut Bud moth
Much excitement last Sunday! I sent this tweet to Rob, who runs the British Leafminers website:
I’ve got larvae emerging from Hazel catkins!!! The lid of the container was slightly ajar & one’s done a runner, first to a cactus, now on a succulent on my kitchen window. The other’s still in the container. Might these be Epinotia tenerana?
Rob kindly confirmed my identification of these little critters as the larvae of the Nut Bud moth (Epinotia tenerana). Though these are obviously not leafminers, it was, in fact, Rob who inspired me to collect these catkins in the first place. In a tweet a couple of weeks ago, he also recommended harvesting catkins from Birch, native Alder and Italian alder, and putting them in containers to see what might emerge from them. He wasn’t specific about what to expect but I was intrigued so went a’harvesting.
If I had the right equipment and more space, I would try to rear these larvae. If you want to try this for yourself, you can read more about this moth and find instructions on the UK Moths website.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign of anything in my other containers so I might try collecting catkins from different locations and trying again.
11 Sunday Feb 2024
Posted in flowers, trees, wildflowers
Despite this having been a very wet week, the temperatures have been quite mild and, in some cases – as with the ornamental Cherry tree outside my flat, for example – I’ve felt like I could almost see the buds fattening. So, it comes as no surprise to me that, this week, I’ve managed to find ten species of wildflower and tree in flower: Alder, Field speedwell, Dandelion, Lesser celandine, Primrose, Wild strawberry, Sweet violet, Common fumitory, Three-cornered leek, and Red dead-nettle.
16 Tuesday Jan 2024
Tags
Birch, bundle of sticks on Birch, gall on Birch tree, Taphrina betulina, Witch's broom, Witches' broom
When I went to north Cardiff last week to see the Waxwings, I also had a walk around nearby Heath Park and found one of the best examples I’ve ever seen locally of Witch’s (or Witches’) broom. One tall Birch tree had a particularly large ‘broom’, a dense twisted mass of twigs and small branches, and several smaller ones just beginning to form.
Witch’s brooms can be found on several different tree species and, according to an entry on the Woodland Trust website, they are likely caused ‘by fungal, viral or bacterial activity, and occasionally insect activity’. However, it is generally agreed that brooms on Birch trees are caused by the fungus, Taphrina betulina.
15 Monday Jan 2024
I mentioned yesterday that any remaining berries are fast disappearing as hungry birds search for sustenance in the cold winter weather. Well, here’s one of those berry eaters, the one that I find a bit more cooperative when it comes to photographs than many of the other berry-eating birds, the beautiful Blackbird. (I find Redwing and Fieldfare, Song and Mistle thrushes all tend to be a little more elusive.)
14 Sunday Jan 2024
Tags
Going, going, soon be gone! Given the voracious appetites of birds in the colder weather, those berries than still remain will soon be gone. So, I thought we’d have a change from wildflowers this week and, instead, enjoy some bright berry colours (and hips and haws and other berry-type fruit) before they all disappear into hungry mouths and beaks.
22 Friday Dec 2023
Posted in trees
I read online recently, on the Woodland Trust website, that the English oak (Quercus robur) supports as many as 2300 species, 326 of which depend entirely on the Oak for their survival. The 2300 total includes 108 fungi, 1178 invertebrates and 716 lichens, as well as creatures like bats, butterflies like the Purple hairstreak, birds like Jays and Wood warblers. Where would our ecosystems be without the magnificent Oak?!
17 Sunday Dec 2023
Tags
British leafminers, leaf-mining fly larvae, leaf-mining moth larvae, leafminers, leafmines, leafmines on plants, leafmines on trees
As a result of standing staring for hours at leaves, I’ve found lots and lots of lovely new-to-me leafminers this year. Here’s a summary of those I’ve blogged about:
On 13 February, Leafmines: Phyllonorycter ulicicolella covered the tricky-to-find mines of tiny moth larvae on gorse. In Leafmines: Eriocrania unimaculella, 22 May, the larvae of a different moth were mining Birch leaves, and, on 26 June, Leafmines: Mompha terminella, featured more moth larvae mines, this time on Enchanter’s nightshade. In October the moth miners were munching on Hawthorn leaves (Leafmines: Bucculatrix bechsteinella, 2 October) and on Blackthorn (Leafmines: Lyonetia prunifoliella, 9 October). The only new non-moth miner of the year was a fly whose larvae were found mining the leaves of Alder (Leafmines: Agromyza alnivora, 16 October) and, later in October, we were back to moth miners, with Hawthorn once again the plant of choice (Leafmines: Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, 23 October). In November, a willow moth miner I’d mentioned once before in passing starred in its very own blog (Leafmines: Phyllonorycter viminiella, 20 November) and, a week later, on 27 November, another moth larva was found on the leaves of a rose species (Leafmines: Stigmella anomalella). The final leafminer find of 2023 was yet another moth, this time devouring the leaves of Wild privet (Leafmines: Gracillaria syringella, 4 December).
I’ve already referenced the three case-bearing moth larvae leafminers in an earlier countdown blog (C is for Coleophora) but, just for completeness, I’ll also link to them here: Leafmines: Coleophora lutipennella on 1 May, Leafmines: Coleophora serratella on 15 May, and Leafmines: Coleophora gryphipennella on 13 November.
16 Saturday Dec 2023
Tags
British galls, bug galls, galls, galls on Ash, galls on Hazel, galls on oak trees, galls on Poplar, galls on willow, galls on Yew, Knopper gall, midge galls, mite galls, wasp galls
This is really a review of the galls I’ve found this year but the letter G simply had to be about my first ever confirmed Goshawk sighting, so K is for Knopper is my alternative lead in.
Knopper galls, like the one shown above, did feature in one post this year, Acorns and galls on 1 October, but there were many other galls, most of which were new finds for me. February saw the year off to a good start with galls on Yew trees caused by a tiny midge (Galls: Taxomyia taxi, 9 February) and galls on Hazel caused by an equally tiny mite (Galls: Phytoptus avellanae, 20 February). In June, it was a small bug that was creating eye-catching galls on the leaves of an Ash tree (Galls: Psyllopsis fraxini, 12 June), and, in July, aphids were the gall causers on a Poplar tree (Galls: Pemphigus spyrothecae, 17 July). In that October blog Acorns and galls I mentioned above, as well as the knoppers, another tiny wasp had caused artichoke galls to form on the same Oak tree. And, a couple of weeks later, I found my final new galls for the year, those caused by midges on Willow trees (Galls: Rabdophaga rosaria, 17 October). All in all, 2023 was quite a galling year!
earthstar 
You must be logged in to post a comment.