09 Monday Aug 2021
Posted in plants
I’ve been resisting taking berry photos, trying to deny the fact that the days are shortening and the summer heat slowly fading, but I have been watching the Wayfaring trees I featured earlier this year, in the post The Wayfarer, and I couldn’t resist documenting how the glorious flowers from May have gradually been developing into luscious shiny red berries.
06 Thursday May 2021
As part of this spring’s project to watch trees and shrubs come to life, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Wayfaring trees during my local walks. Viburnum lantana is a tree – or shrub, if the potential to grow 5 metres tall means it can still be called a shrub – I’ve mostly ignored in the past but now I have a much better appreciation of its beauty.
The leaf buds when they first begin to develop are brown and furry and very sculptural.
And the flowers are equally lovely. The first of these photos was taken on 23 March, the most recent just two days ago, on 4 May.
You can read more about the Wayfaring tree on the Woodland Trust website, where the entry includes the fascinating information that arrows made from stems of this tree were found on the frozen body of ‘Ötzi the Iceman’, the man from 4000-3500BC whose body was found in the Austrian Alps in 1991.