Hastings steps

Hastings in East Sussex UK has many flights of steps ascending the various hills around the town.

Noonan’s Steps climbs like a waterless cascade up the flank of the West Hill.

The walls and crevices support many different plants, wet and shiny after the overnight rain. There are ivy-leaved toadflax and trailing bellflower; elder and sycamore bushes; shepherd's purse, goosegrass and clumps of moss casually thrown off neighbouring roofs by insect hunting birds.  The photo below is of some alexanders, Smyrnium olusatrum, hanging over a wall:

At one spot there was a battered typewriter lying in a doorway next to an empty can of Red Bull. Maybe an aspiring writer had thrown it and the empty can from an upper window in frustration when the muse would not visit. Whatever the case, no novels, or poems, or letters were going to emerge from its keys again. It seemed strange though that it had survived for so long in this computer age.

For typewriter aficionados it is a Commodore, probably made in Canada.  Taxonomy has got me!

I walked back down Gas Works Steps and up Stonefield Road. 

Here, as in lots of other place, were some good examples of a sprawling  Cerastium.  It is, I think, sea mouse-ear, C. diffusum but I will have to do a bit more work on that as it a difficult genus.

I also found a spray of oak-leaved honeysuckle, I think just a juvenile form of our ordinary wild honeysuckle, Lonicera periclymenum.

By the Tesco superstore, Hollington, Hastings.

On the eastern side of Tescos superstore there is an asphalt path running uphill over mown grass to the streets and houses on the Tilekiln estate. To the west is ancient woodland, a northern extension of Church Wood still with yellow archangel peeping under the chestnut post and rail fence and with plenty of bluebells beneath the leafing hornbeams and other trees.

On the other side of the path it is mostly mown grass up to the fence round the Tesco buildings, but in the middle of this is a deep gully that was once the bed of a stream running into the lower part of Church Wood but now culverted for much of its length (Grid Ref. TQ7861311733). It is rather encouragingly full of a very varied scrub and I imagine the species count would be high if an extended ecological survey were undertaken.

There were fresh green brambles, white ball-bearing buds of hawthorn, oak and ash entwined with honeysuckle and flowering sedge while, in the distance, a woodpigeon was cooing persistently.

On the edge of the gully I found a fine plant of spotted medick (Medicago arabica) with tiny, yellow flowers.  I is native in southern Britain that is said to be expanding its range for reasons that are not entirely clear. It seems to be widespread in Sussex.

 

In several other places were plants of ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) with their rough, pod-like flower heads already developed (see behind the medick above). I saw some being used in a masterchef salad on television the other day and the authors of the Walk around Britain website say “The fresh seeds of both species make a very good protein nibble, tasting rather like mushrooms.” I tried a flower head. It didn’t taste bad, but had a rough, chaff-like quality making it difficult to swallow.

Two teenage girls and a boy were wandering about clearly trying to think of something to do. They chattered loudly and talked a bit about me, a stranger, but were good humoured and cheerful when I made some irrelevant reply. They made no further remarks after they had seen me eating ribwort plantain flowers – I can’t think why.

St George's mushrooms

Driving round our lane I noticed a couple of flashes of white in the grass verge and, upon investigation, discovered they were St George's mushrooms, Calocybe gambosa.

Interesting to see toadstools among anemone and wild strawberry leaves.

This is an edible species that regularly appears along these lane verges and named after St George because it is a spring fruiting fungus that often appears around St George's day, 23 April.

I have eaten them in the past and they are quite popular in many parts of mainland Europe, but I don't really care for them.  Maybe I'll see what flies I can breed out and whether they differ from those that burrow about in our autumn fungi.

Beware Ceanothuses crossing!

This photo of a lonely flowering Ceanothus bush escaping from Tescos in St. Leonard's-on-Sea came out of my camera today.

Ceanothus is a North American plant belonging to the family Rhamnaceae.  The buckthorns, the only foodplants of our British brimstone butterfly larvae, also belong to this plant family.  The adult butterflies are known to visit Ceanothus flowers in this country and I wonder if anyone has looked for caterpillars on this plant, or tried to feed them on the leaves.

Rats!

I was asked recently by a friend if there was anything he could do about the rats that had turned up on the ground under his bird table.

Cats, terriers, traps, guns, poison, ultrasonic devices- there a plenty of options, most of them with drawbacks. And, of course, he could stop feeding the birds.

The rodents there are brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) which, despite the specific name, did not reach Britain from Norway. They arrived here and elsewhere in Europe, from their native home in the Far East, probably in the early 18th century and have spread to most of the world apart from the Arctic and Antarctic and a few islands.

In Britain some reckon there are 81 million of them, more than the human population and many, of course, live in urban areas. They have a bad reputation because they steal our food (as well as that of the birds), forage in smelly places and can transmit various diseases, especially when they live in sewers. They do, however, have a plus side. Some people think the decline of bubonic plague was due to the arrival of brown rats since, like us, they can apparently catch plague but not transmit it. Transmission was normally accomplished by fleas on the black rat and other rodents and the displacement of the black rat (Rattus rattus) by the brown rat has been equated with a decline in the plague (aka black death).

Rats have also contributed much to medicine through their role as laboratory animals and in many countries they are popular pets.

The disgust felt for these animals by many people seems to be a culturally derived habit and not one like a fear of things that can be genuinely harmful like venomous snakes. Their name has also been used as a widespread insult -"You dirty rat" etc. Maybe they are too much like us. Many people do have a sort of general fear of wild animals, even mice and spiders, but the rat is in a class of its own.

Robert Browning in the Pied Piper of Hamelin didn't do much for their image:

They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats

But the puppet Roland Rat, created by David Claridge, has had a spectacular career as a TV character since the 1980s and his markedly ratty personality and home in a ratcave under Kings Cross station seems to make him more rather than less popular. It is us that are peculiar creatures rather than rats. Still, we both go in for bruxing (the sound made by grinding one's teeth), a new addition to my vocabulary.

Winter sunset

For 12 days the night time temperature has fallen below freezing with over a week of unbroken snow cover. In the garden on several days it has reached -6 degrees C, and once -8, unusually cold for our area. It was snowing again this morning, but a thaw is forecast so hopefully it will feel a little warmer next week.

Yesterday evening the temperature fell very rapidly as the sun went down. There was an Irish tradition of a small ‘western room’ in the house where mementoes of members of the family that had passed on were kept so that one was reminded of them as one faced the setting sun, the direction the dead followed on their journey to the Otherworld.

The coldness and stillness of the subzero winter world echoed this mood as I watched the sun set over the churchyard across the valley from our garden. However, the dark 'sunspot' of a rook's nest silhouetted against our life giving star reminded me that spring is not far away.

Galls in the grass

Strolling yesterday on the fringes of St. Leonard's-on-Sea I noticed some of the fading grasses dangling through a wire mesh fence were swollen and distorted at the tips where the flowering spike might have been.

Further investigation showed that the grass was common couch grass (Elytrigia repens) and that the galls were caused by the small Eurytomid wasp Tetramesa hyalipennis.  The books and papers on galls indicate that this is a widespread and common species but there are no records on the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre database and the National Biodiversity Network has records only from Merseyside and Northern Scotland.  It has also been recorded from Cornwall and I am sure it has simply been overlooked elsewhere.

Now is the time to get out and see if you can find any.

I have brought those in the picture home to see what hatches out.  It will not necessarily be T. hyalipennis as various parasites and squatters have been recorded from these galls and the child or children of the original gall causer may have been consumed in its prime.

Moth from alder buckthorn

A few weeks ago I found some leaves spun together on the alder buckthorn (Frangula alnus) in our garden and managed to raise the moth from the caterpillar it contained.

I had hope it might be an alder buckthorn specialist, but it turned out to be the common light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana).

It is an introduced species from Australia that was first found in the UK in Cornwall in the 1930s Apparently the larvae will eat almost anything, though they are an apple orchard pest in their home country.  There they also feed on a wide range of native species as well as introduced fruit trees.

I wonder if this might be the first record of the moth using alder buckthorn.

Wool-carder bee

A welcome resident in our garden is the wool-carder bee (Anthidium manicatum).  There is a male that defends a territory around some of my houseleek (Sempervivum) collection.  Both males and females seem particularly fond of the flowers and there is a nest in the corner of one of the pots.

The picture above is of a male sitting on a plastic watering can.  Quite often he will take to the wing, fly round the area and hover in front of the houseleek flowers, occasionally settling on them.

The male is, unusually for insects, larger and more aggressive than the female depicted below.

The name 'wool-carder-bee' derives from the fact that the female strips hair from wooly plants, rolls them into a ball and flies off with this tucked between her chin and her forelegs.  She uses this wool to line her nest hole and then constructs cells which she fills with a mixture of pollen and honey for her brood.

Gilbert White of Selborne wrote about this species in his journals: "There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it turns to some purpose in the business of nidification.  It is very pleasant to see with what address it strips off the pubes, running from the top to the bottom of the branch, & shaving it bare with all the dexterity of a hoop-shaver."

I imagine the 'garden-campion' was the  rose campion (Lychnis coronaria).  Hoop-shaving was the woodland craft of cutting hoops (for binding barrels and so on) from hazel poles.

White oak midget

A week ago I found a mine in the folded edge of an oak leaf on a tree growing near the end of Billingham Lane, Udimore (first field trip of the new Udimore Wildlife Society).

I identified it tentatively as being caused by the white oak midget moth (Phyllonorycter harrisella) and kept it in a box to see if anything emerged.  I was rewarded today by this tiny but beautiful insect hardly bigger than a grass seed.  Its pupal case can be seen in the top photo.

Like many insects, the eye spots at the end of the wings create a false head which is more likely to be attacked by a predator allowing the moth to escape relatively unharmed.  The wing stripes also seem to make it point in the wrong direction.

Leaf miners like this usually appear only in very small numbers on their host plants, an I wonder why this should be when there is so much food available.  The infamous horse-chestnut leaf miner (Cameraria ohridella) which is a species of about the same size and in the same family - Gracillariidae - was first recorded in Britain in 2002 having spread rapidly from the Balkans.  Although it was described as a new species only in 1986, specimens in herbarium collections of horse-chestnut date back to 1879 but it was well-behaved until very recently.  Cameraria now seems unstoppable and every single leaf on every horse-chestnut is often infected with several mines.  Why do our long-standing native species like the white oak midget show such commendable restraint?  Is it due to parasites, predators or pathogens that Cameraria does not yet have?  Some believe it is and that the current massive infestations of horse-chestnut will decline as the years go by.

Of course, the relative scarcity of the white oak midget with, say, only a few mines per oak tree may be an advantage inasmuch as it makes it quite difficult for predators and parasites to find it and hardly worth the energy-wasting search for such a small morsel.  That makes me wonder about the dynamics and practicality of remaining at a low-level without being wiped out altogether.

Beetle bug (Issus coleoptratus)

I have again been running one of my log pile traps at the  end of the garden.  There was quite a good haul of invertebrates today and I took a photo of this little beetle bug sitting on top of the pile.

This species is common everywhere and often found on ivy.  I always see it around rotten logs and am still trying to work out what it eats.

Woodpecker & tortoiseshell

We see all sorts of things in the garden from our sitting room window: rabbits, foxes, weasels, badgers and all manner of birds and insects.

Today we were given two special treats.  First a green woodpecker spent some time on our small lawn, pecking with evident relish at something in the grass.

It was not possible to see what the bird found so tasty, but there were some light showers overnight, and this may have brought a few insects to the surface in these drought-stricken days.

The other treat was a small tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) enjoying the nectar in a large flowered clematis.

Such highly engineered blossoms don not, generally, seem to be much visited by insects, but the butterfly returned repeatedly and, as far as I could see, visited no other flowers.

The small tortoiseshell has suffered a massive decline in recent years and it is thought this is due to a parasitic tachinid fly called Sturmia bella, first recorded in  Britain in the late 1990s.  However, the butterfly seems to be making a comeback and several were seen in this area last year after a period of total absence.  I wonder how it has managed to outwit the parasite, if that is what was causing the problem.  perhaps like the holly blue and its parasitic wasp, the large number of caterpillars affected means that eventually the parasite almost runs out of hosts and becomes scarce, only to return in force as the abundance of the butterfly increases.

Blue tits away

The blue tits in the nest box just outside our bedroom window are now fully fledged.  One of the young ones poked his head through the hole to explore the possibilities of the outside world.

He seemed to like the look of what he saw, pulled his wings out and flew off into the bushes by the hedge.  No practice, no licence, just instinct.

Edward T. Connold - an appreciation

Recently, while compiling some notes on the mites of Sussex, I was made aware of the detailed observations made by Edward Connold on the gall mites of the area around Hastings where he lived in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Many of these still stand as the only recorded observation of a particular species in Sussex, though most are probably widely distributed. Connold seemed an interesting man, so I thought I would find a little more out about him.

Edward Thomas Connold was born in Castle Street, Hastings in June 1862 and died in St Leonards-on-Sea in January 1910 aged 47. Although he moved about to various schools and in various jobs as a child and a young man, he returned permanently to St. Leonards in 1885. His son, Edward Thomas Connold, was a professional photographer who did much work in Sussex.

Connold, an amateur (he earned his living as a grocer), had a very wide interest in natural history as is borne out by his various observations in The Hastings and East Sussex Naturalist. He was especially interested in shells, wasps, caterpillars, wildflowers and marine life but his major contribution nationally and internationally was in the study of plant galls and Margaret Redfern in her New Naturalist book Plant Galls (2011) suggest he was the discoverer of galls on the roots of plants.

Detailed notes on the galls Connold found are published in his books British Vegetable Galls (1901), British Oak Galls (1908) and Plant Galls of Great Britain (1909). He also made a valuable contribution to the study of marine life by editing his friend Philip Rufford’s book Notes of British Hydroid Zoophytes (1902). (Hydroid Zoophytes are now included in the phylum Bryozoa, or moss animals. They are small, mainly marine animals often similar to corals with creatures like small sea anemones inside a colonial, skeletal covering of their own construction. Many colonies look more like plants than animals. Rufford and Connold often obtained their specimens of these and other marine life from the Hastings trawlers.)

In 1907 Connold also described and photographed the colony of ‘larger wintergreen’ (now round-leaved wintergreen) that then flourished “in the Hastings District” (Connold, 1908). This was presumably the plant from the Icklesham railway cutting (TQ856174) discovered by a Mrs. Wood in 1901. He was also one of several people who claimed that the smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) occurred in the Hastings area along with adders and grass snakes and something he referred to as the ‘small red viper’. Once formally named Vipera rubra, these are now known simply to be young adders that are often of a reddish colour (Beebee & Griffiths, 2000).

Something of Connold’s personality and character emerge from his book of essays Gleanings from the Fields of Nature which he describes thus:

The studies are from copious notes, mental and written, made during very many enjoyable rambles along the shore, and through woods and by-paths of rural districts around Hastings and St. Leonards-on-Sea; and from careful examination of the objects under the microscope.

He had a soft spot for spiders:

While it is admitted that spiders about the house are not welcome, and that they also suggest neglect, by spinning their snares in nooks and crannies, they often rid the occupants of the home of many troublesome flies.

But decidedly old-fashioned attitudes towards the digging up of primroses:

The primrose is a hardy plant, and will not suffer from being properly removed from its native haunt, and placed in a garden or rockery.

Connold, like the rest of us, made the occasional mistake (he described wild service leaves as guelder rose, for example) but he was a first class recorder who in his short life left us an important legacy on species in the Hastings area over 100 years ago. In one of his obituaries The Gardeners’ Chronicle said “his work on Vegetable Galls is a valuable contribution to the advancement of science.”

His writing was clear and usually to the point, though sometimes he would allow himself an engaging Edwardian conceit:

And perhaps some frisky little billow flings itself upon a large boulder nearby, and laughs with glee as it suddenly breaks into countless beads of spray, and showers them upon you like liquid pearls. (Connold, 1908b.)

REFERENCES

Anon. (1910a) Mr. Edward T. Connold (obituary). Gardeners’ Chronicle XLVII, January 15 1910: p. 47

Anon. (1910b) Edward Thomas Connold (obituary). Hastings and East Sussex Naturalist 1 (5) 16 May 1910: 197-199.

Beebee, T. & Griffiths, R. (2000) Amphibians and Reptiles. Harper Collins (New Naturalist series), London.

Connold, Edward T. (n.d.) Conchological notes : a description by Edward Connold of some shells collected by Philip James Rufford...with a note on pelecypoda by P.J. Rufford. Hastings Museum publication 4, Hastings Museum, Hastings.

Connold, Edward T. (1894) Wasps and how they live. Burfield & Pennells, Hastings.

Connold, Edward T. (1901) British Vegetable Galls. An introduction to their study. Hutchinson & Co., London.

Connold, Edward T. (1908a) Notes on the Occurrence of the Larger Wintergreen, Pyrola rotundifolia, Linn. Near Hastings. Hastings & East Sussex Naturalist 1(3): 123.

Connold, Edward T. (1908b) Gleanings from the Fields of Nature. The Religious Tract Society, London.

Connold, Edward T. (1908c) British Oak Galls. Adlard and Son, London.

Connold, Edward T. (1909) Plant Galls of Great Britain: A Nature Study Handbook. Hutchinson, London.

Redfern, Margaret (2011) Plant Galls. Collins (New Naturalist series), London.

Rufford, Philip James. Ed. Connold, Edward T. (1902) Notes of British Hydroid Zoophytes. Burfield & Pennells, Hastings.

Sussexpostcards.info http://www.sussexpostcards.info/publishers.php?PubID=78

An explosive plant

Alder buckthorn (Frangula alnus) is an unassuming shrub or small tree that is not uncommon in woods and on heaths in England and Wales. Its main claim to attention today is that it is one of the principle food plants of the brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) but it has had an important role in the past in the fortunes of this and other European countries through the use of its charcoal in the manufacture of gunpowder. Alder buckthorn charcoal ignites readily and burns evenly and slowly. As well as for cartridges, its steady-burning properties were exploited in manufacturing fuses for explosives (Mauskopf, 2006).

Alder buckthorn grows quite widely in my home area around the village of Sedlescombe in East Sussex, UK, mostly occurring in woodlands. I have come across a few plants, in Brede High Wood for example, that appear to have been coppiced, but I think coppice plantations of this small tree were not established locally in the past. However, as the following paragraphs will indicate, it seems highly likely that the wood was harvested as a valuable item of underwood for converting to gunpowder charcoal, either locally or further afield.

The value of alder buckthorn charcoal for gunpowder dates back many years and it has been described as being of “major military importance in the 15^th to 19^th centuries.” (Mobile Reference, 2010). In 1785 Major William Congreve (later Sir William) carried out tests on the charcoal from various woods and in 1791 listed alder buckthorn (as black dogwood), alder and white willow as the best types to be used in gunpowder production. Writing in 1831, Elizabeth Kent said that the charcoal made from the wood was “much prized by the manufacturers of gunpowder, who buy up all they can procure of it, and use it only for the very best gunpowder.”

Part of the reason why the economic role of alder buckthorn was obscured is that its vernacular names were confusing. John R. Jackson, curator of the museum at Kew, wrote in 1870 “In most books relating to economic botany, or to the application of woods,Cornus sanguinea, or dogwood, is referred to as yielding the best charcoal for gunpowder. Certain it is that the gunpowder makers all know the wood they use in such large quantities, by the name of dogwood, and it was generally believed that Cornus sanguinea was the plant which furnished them with their supplies.” At that period, samples of ‘dogwood’ used for gunpowder charcoal in many different places were sent to Kew and all turned out to be alder buckthorn. Jackson continued that this was proof that alder buckthorn “is the plant from whence the gunpowder-makers draw their supplies, and that Cornus sanguinea, or true dogwood, is never used, now, nor, indeed is there any proof that it ever has been, for the powder makers maintain that what they now call dogwood is the same wood which has always been used by them.”

This confusion of names has been compounded by the scientific name of alder buckthorn changing from Rhamnus frangula to Frangula alnus in the last century.

Alder buckthorn is uncommon in Scotland but, in about 1870, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh was sent a sample of alder buckthorn (as dogwood) from the Roslin Gunpowder Mills of Hay, Merricks & Co. in Midlothian. It was “of English growth in the county of Sussex” where the price varied from £10 to £14 per ton, according to quality. The sticks, which were usually sent out in May or June, were peeled and packed into bundles of 100 (M’Nab, 1870).

The Merricks family, who established the Roslin Gunpowder Mill in about 1805, originated in East Sussex “near the gunpowder mill sites at Battle and Sedlescombe” though no evidence has been found that any of the Merricks worked at these mills (Crocker, 1996). However, it may be that they took a knowledge of alder buckthorn charcoal with them to Scotland plus a knowledge of how to procure it.

In her book about Sedlescombe, Beryl Lucy (1978) says “the charcoal for ordinary gunpowder was made from alder wood burnt in pits in the way that had been practised locally, in Petley Woods in particular, from time immemorial. For the finer or sporting powder, dogwood was used. Both of these woods are still very plentiful in our countryside. When the underwood in the district was being cut, the dogwood was carefully reserved, peeled and tied into bundles.”  Alder buckthorn is not uncommon today in the Petley Wood area of Sedlescombe, while true dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) does not occur naturally in this part of East Sussex.

Another important gunpowder mill was that of John Hall & Son at Faversham in Kent and they apparently worked in conjunction with Hay, Merricks and Co., of Roslin to produce the only explosives of the gunpowder type which successfully passed the Woolwich tests for the " Permitted List." (International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry, 1909).

Hall’s works at Faversham spread over six hundred acres planted with both alder and alder buckthorn “more especially of the former, for though the wood itself is not so valuable as the latter for the actual manufacture of powder, the tree is, owing to its larger size, more effectual in obstructing fragments of burning timber as well as diminishing the force of the shock in case of an explosion.” (Jackson, 1870).

As an illustration of the quality and importance of alder buckthorn charcoal, Mauskopf (2006) writes “Fine Grain powder was replaced by Enfield Rifle (E.R.) powder in 1859; the grain size of the new powder was increased from 16-36 mesh to 16-24 mesh. But the chief modification was the change of wood for the charcoal: ‘dogwood’ was substituted for alder or willow. In a footnote to this passage Mauskopf, referring to a Major Morgan of the Royal Artillery, writes “The substitute was, in fact, alder buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula), known in France as bourdaine, the traditional source of charcoal for French military powder. Since the comparative on gunpowder of the chemist J.-L. Proust, published early in the century, bourdaine was known to yield a strong powder.”

In the earlier part of the 19^th century alder buckthorn was obtained chiefly from Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Kent (Jackson, 1870) “but after the introduction of the Enfield rifle into the military service of this country, the superior kinds of powder came much more into demand, and it was found difficult to obtain a sufficient quantity.” Because of this, supplies of the wood were imported from mainland Europe, particularly Holland, Germany and Belgium. The charcoal was prepared in enclosed iron cylinders (Saturday Magazine, 1886).

During World War I the difficulty of obtaining alder buckthorn charcoal from mainland Europe meant that supplies had to be sought within Britain. The War Office appealed for wood in Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1915 saying they “would be glad to know of any supplies of Rhamnus Frangula in this country. Estate owners who have plantations of Rhamnus and are willing to sell should communicate with the Secretary, War Office, Whitehall.” (Anon., 1915) This was followed in the same magazine a few months later by a longer article from E. M. Holmes, a pharmacist and botanist from Sevenoaks, Kent. He said, among other things (Holmes, 1915):

· The wood of this small tree is at present much wanted for the manufacture of fine gunpowder. Formerly it was imported from Germany, where apparently the tree was coppiced in order to get straight stems.

· Wood about one inch in diameter is required.

· Those who know where the tree grows in fair abundance should make known the fact.

· The wood is recognised by the manufacturer by having a reddish stain around the small pith which the wood of Cornus does not possess.

· The bark, when scratched with the finger nail or a knife blade, shows a crimson colour underneath. .

· In view of the present difficulty experience should teach the necessity of cultivating Rhamnus Frangula in woods in this country.

Charcoal from alder buckthorn remained important for munitions until the close of World War II. According to Meiggs (1949):

"The Home Timber Production Department undertook responsibility for the supply of alder buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) needed for the manufacture of a highly specialised form of charcoal used in the making of certain types of explosive. Before the war supplies had come from France and Czechoslovakia, but in 1938 small scale orders had been placed with the Forestry Commission and had been met from the New Forest. .... It was ... plentiful enough in the New Forest for economic production and it was in the New Forest that the first war demands were met and the basis of the standard organisation laid.

The sticks were cut in 2½-foot lengths, bundled in the woods and brought to a picking up point from which they were transported to a central depot. The sticks had to be peeled, which could only be done easily while the sap was up in the spring. As the demand increased, however, production had to be maintained over the whole year; outside the natural peeling season, the sticks were first boiled in a copper for up to an hour to make peeling easier and then laid out for two or three days to dry, before being again bundled, weighed and despatched. The same organisation was repeated when new depots were opened and women made this small but important sphere their own. The operations at the depot were organised by a specially selected measurer and the peeling and other work of the depot was carried out entirely by women. Women also eventually became exclusively responsible for locating supplies in the woods and for supervising the cutting to ensure that the cutters made no mistakes in identifying the somewhat rare shrub.

The demand grew rapidly as the munition programme got into its stride. Only 50 tons had been ordered in 1939. The requirement for 1940 was 200 tons, increased in 1941 to 400 tons, and fresh areas had to be opened up. Wicken Fen was the first outside the New Forest to be exploited, and following a survey of East Anglia, operations were extended to the neighbouring counties. In 1941, since these two main sources were becoming exhausted, a complete survey was made of the country by the Cambridge School of Botany for the Biology War Committee. Much useful information was gathered in the course of this survey on the ecological habits of the plant and the areas of main concentration were tabulated. ....

With the extension of operations a new peeling depot was established in the north west, drawing supplies from the neighbouring Divisions, but by the middle of 1943 sufficient stocks had been built up to call a halt."

Despite the value and importance of its charcoal, alder buckthorn seldom seems to have been grown as a crop in Britain, most supplies being gathered from self-sown plants scattered through the underwood. Sir Joseph Hooker, director of Kew Gardens in the late 19^th century, did recommend that it was grown on a coppice system and this seems to have happened in the Faversham area, but this was almost certainly the exception rather than the rule. In some places today the plant is particularly abundant, Broadwater Forest near Tunbridge Wells, for example. This area was much used by the military in the past and it may be that the tree was deliberately encouraged.

In addition to its importance for gunpowder charcoal, alder buckthorn had a role in medecine and in the production of the artist's pigment known as sap green. Kent (1831) wrote “The juice expressed from the berries being boiled down with some gum arabic and a little alum, and then poured into bladders to grow hard, is the colour called sap green.”

Alder buckthorn bark and berries have long been used as a powerful laxative. Though this largely seemed to have stopped during the 19^thcentury as gentler aperients became available, the bark was used for its purgative properties during World War II. Meiggs (1949) wrote “The bark was dried on corrugated iron sheets over improvised burners and ultimately found its way into purgatives. This was no secret to the gypsies who for centuries have eaten the berries or chewed the bark of alder buckthorn in preference to the more expensive and synthetic purgatives provided by the chemist; the use of the bark for this purpose, however, only became a respectable war demand when other sources of supply were reduced.”

REFERENCES

Anon. (1915) Wood for gunpowder. Gardeners’ Chronicle, Vol 57., April 17^th 1915, page 211.

Holmes, E. M. (1915) Rhamnus Frangula. Gardeners’ Chronicle, Vol 57., June 12 1915, page 332.

International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1909).The rise and progress of the British explosives industry. Whittaker & Co., London.

Jackson, John R. (1870) The “dogwoods” used in the manufacture of gunpowder. In The Student and intellectual observer of science, literature and art. Volume 4. http://goo.gl/NniVJ

Kent, Elizabeth (1831) Sylvan Sketches or a Companion to the Park and the Shrubbery with Illustrations from the Works of the Poets. Thomas Davison, London.

Lucey, B. (1978) Twenty Centuries in Sedlescombe. Regency Press, London.

Mauskopf, S. H. (2005) Chemistry in the Arsenal: State regulation and scientific methodology gunpowder in eighteenth-century England and France. In Steele, Brett D. & Dorland, Tamara. Eds.(2005) The heirs of Archimedes: science and the art of war through the Age of Enlightenment. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mauskopf, Seymour H. (2006) Pellets, Pebbles and Prisms: British Munitions for Larger Guns, 1860-1885. Chapter 16 in Brenda J. Buchanan (2006) Gunpowder, explosives and the state: a technological history. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham, Surrey.

Meiggs, Russell (1949) Home Timber Production. Crosby Lockwood & Son Ltd, London

M’Nab, Mr. (1870) Notes on the “dogwood” of gunpowder manufacturers. Scientific Opinion Feb 3^rd 1870

Mobile Reference (2010) The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Trees And Shrubs: An Essential Guide To Trees And Shrubs Of The World. Mobi Reference.

Lizards in the parlour

Quite unexpectedly, two full grown common lizards (Zootoca vivipara) have appeared just outside our French windows.

We have all been watching them sunning themselves on the steps and disappearing into various cracks in the wall and behind the masonry.

They seem very tame and one of them ventured briefly over the door sill and into the sitting room.

I do wonder where they have come from.  The last lizard I saw in our garden was five or six years ago when one used to visit the Square Metre.  The new pair must have come some way to their new home and it is good to see them.  If male and female, let's hope them have a family.

Hazel catkin galls

Now, with the weather improving, is the time to walk out and look for galls on hazel buds and catkins.

In my garden and round about, practically every hazel bush has big bud galls made by the mite Phytoptus avellanae.

A more detailed search quickly revealed some galled catkins.

The unopened brown catkin on the right has been attacked by either the mite Phyllocoptes coryli or the Cecidomyid midge Contarinia coryli.  The only way one can tell which species is responsible is by picking them apart and looking for the mites, which are minute, or the small white grubs of the midge.  I quite quickly found midge larvae - little white maggots - but have not found any of the mites yet.  They are very small though and will need a microscope.

Galls like this (the only two found on hazel catkins in Britain) are probably common throughout Britain, but rarely recorded, so if you come across any, don't forget to send records in.

The nut bud moth (Epinotia tenerana) also lives, in its earlier instars, in hazel catkins before boring its way into hazel buds to complete its development.  It is also widespread in Britain, so that' another one to look out for.

England's forests for sale

The much broadcast government consultation on the proposed sale of large parts of the estate owned by the public via the Forestry Commission was launched today:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/forests/index.htm

Apart from saying, in the style of Sellar & Yeatman "This is a bad thing" (which I believe profoundly that it is), I thought I might use this space to set out some considerations that I have not seen covered in the media, but are important.

This is just a start. I will update this entry as time goes by.

30 January 2010

There is a very well considered commentary on the proposed forest sell-off from the Chief Executive of the Sussex Wildlife Trust, Tony Whitbread, here: http://www.sussexwt.org.uk/blog/2011/01/forestry-commission-sell-off/

27 January 2010

Access. The Government says that access will be conserved. Does this mean that new owners will be under an obligation to maintain car parks and footpaths and, in particular, any open glades or heathy areas that are so important for biodiversity? Will rides have to be maintained at an appropriate width for optimum ecological benefit? Will there be 'close seasons' when shooting takes place, or the birds to be shot are breeding? Will 'access' mean the freedom to go anywhere in the wood or forest, or will it be confined to set paths and routes?

Identification. How will we know if a wood or forest has public access or not? Currently Forestry Commission Woods are clearly marked on the popular Ordnance Survey Explorer and Pathfinder maps. If these woods are sold and the Forestry Commission marking removed, how will people know which woods are accessible? Perhaps the Government could consider continuing to mark them on maps some how or other. "Former public wood sold to a private owner by the Coalition Government in 2011."

If all the Ordnance Survey and other Government maps have to be changed, I wonder if the cost has been taken into account.

Many Forestry Commission properties have a sign at the entrance(s) so that people know there is access. Will the new owners have to erect signs saying that the wood/forest is one of the free access ones?

Is there the quite interesting danger that, in the absence of any positive information, people will assume that most or all woods have access? If challenged when walking, could the appropriate response be "Oh, I thought this was one of the public woods you had bought from the Government."

Is this a good moment to press for the 'Right to Roam' to be extended to woods and forests?

Shooting. I mentioned shooting above and, unless shooting is absolutely forbidden in any sold off woods/forests, it seems likely to escalate. Apart from the dislike of this pursuit by so many who use the countryside, it is likely to represent both a danger and a reason to deny access to woods. Many who have been in France know the tyranny in the French countryside of 'La Chasse' and its powerful lobby.

There is also the question of noise. The countryside where I live has been relatively peaceful for the last several years, but this could change with the dismal sound of organised shot gun fire reverberating around during the shooting season. This unpleasant effect extends, of course, far beyond the woods and forests where it is taking place.

Management. There has been much talk of management. It may be possible for an experienced woodland/forest manager to be employed on the larger properties. Most of the smaller ones are too small to justify such an expense. Organisations like county wildlife trusts, the RSPB or the Woodland Trust have managers that cover a number, often a large number, of woodland properties spread over a wide area. The input of experienced people from the Forestry Commission who cover large areas will, presumably, no longer be available and the management of small woods will suffer as the new owners are unlikely to have the time or money to invest in the long learning curve and multiple skills needed to know how best to deal with a wood.

Countryside stewardship. If the scheme continues, many of the sold off woods could be eligible for Entry Level or Higher Level Stewardship. Among other things this means they will receive payment from the Government provided they stick to the agreed management plan. I wonder if the cost of this has been taken into account in considering the 'profit' from woodland/forest sales.

Deer control. In many places deer, and also wild boar, are increasing. Their control via fencing and culling are complicated operations requiring cooperation over large areas if they are to be effective. Many of the animals are using smaller woods and increasingly coming into gardens as different, and often only partially successful, strategies are used to control them. If they are not controlled (and some new woodland owners might not want to) some woods may, in the long run, turn into wood pasture and, ultimately overgrazed grassland with starving animals and not much else.

Robber flies and hogweed larvae

Today as I was watering my house leeks a kite-tailed robber fly (Machimus atricapillus) landed on our abandoned refrigerator (circa 1935) and enjoyed sucking the juices via the head of a hapless hoverfly it had just caught.

Not far away I found some caterpillars of the fuscous brindled flat-body moth, Depressaria pastinacella, a common species but one that normally remains closely concealed in a spun together head of hogweed.

The weasel's lunch

Today I decided to have my lunch looking out into the garden.  Suddenly a weasel emerged from the undergrowth only a couple of metres from me and crossed our small patio.  She held her head high as she was carrying a dead mouse, as cats carry a kitten,  in her mouth.

We do occasionally see weasels in the garden, going along the hedge bottom or elsewhere, but I have not noticed one for several years past and think, like many creatures, they must be getting rarer.

Maybe the mouse was her lunch, but as she was carrying it elsewhere, I like to hope she has a family somewhere in our garden.

A bank full of betony

Just below the south of the junction of Compasses Lane and the B2244 Hawkhurst Road on the western bank at TQ7763820510 is a magnificent stand of betony (Betonica officinalis formerly Stachys officinalis). Their rich purple flowers make a landscape feature and the small white-flowered umbellifer pepper saxifrage (Silaum silaus) also grows here, indicating this is long undisturbed grassland.

Betony was much used by herbalists in the past and in the Domestic Encyclopaedia of 1803 it says that, among other things it "affects those who gather any quantity of its leaves, with a disorder resembling the effects of intoxication."

Betony garlands worn round the neck were said to suppress nightmares and the Anglo-Saxon Herbal said it would protect against"frightful goblins that go by night and terrible sights and dreams."  If one put an adder within a garland of betony it was said that it would kill itself, while thrusting a leaf up one's nose was regarded as a cure for toothache (Medicina Britannica, 1748).

The now rare great case moth (Coleophora wockeella) feeds only on betony and, as the name suggests, goes about like a hermit crab or caddis larva in a small (not great) case made of bits of the leaves.  There is a picture here: http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=527

Killingan Coppice again

The fruit are already ripe on the bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) and here it looks as though the sloe bug (Dolycoris baccarum) centre right is enjoying some of the juice while standing on its head.

The plant is toxic to humans and, although quite large quantities have to be eaten before there are any serious effects, it is important not to experiment.  Sloe bugs appear not to be affected.  The stems are said to be sweet when first chewed, but quickly turn bitter hence, I assume, the name dulcamara meaning sweetbitter.

Spear thistles (Cirsium vulgare) are in full bloom now and very attractive to bumble bees.

 

Another plant doing exceptionally well along the coppice edge in response to higher light levels is upright hedge-parsley (Torilis japonica).

In Korea seeds of this species are one of the ingredients in the 18 herb concoction called paeng-jo-yeon-nyeon-baek-ja-in-hwan (PJBH for short).  In Oriental medicine PJBH is reckoned to activate brain function, promote memory and lengthen life span.  Might try some if I can find the other 17 ingredients.

Why 'black' bryony?

With is shiny green leaves and bright red berries, black bryony (Tamus communis or sometimes Dioscorea communis) is anything but black.

However, it does have a tuber (which was used in medicine) with a black exterior and the leaves, like those shown below, sometimes turn purplish black in summer and autumn.

The name also helps to differentiate the species from the unrelated white bryony (Bryonia dioica), the mandrake, also much used in medicine.

Both plants are climbers with red berries.  This is white bryony at Pagham Harbour, where it tends to sprawl.

Fallen elders

Along the garden path there is a place where an old, dead elder tree (Sambucus nigra) has fallen across a smaller, living example of the same species.

Together they make an attractive architectural and wildlife feature.  The dead tree has plenty of ear fungi on its upper branches and elsewhere and the smaller, living example has ivy ascending the trunk which holds up its dead sister.  It has a few flowers (centre left) but is also sending up some strong shoots for the future.

A good place to sit and meditate on life and death and an interesting little wilderness to try and mould into a semi-designed feature.

The Year of the Welsh Chafer

There have recently been reports from many parts of England of unusually large numbers of the Welsh chafer beetle, Hoplia philanthus, emerging in semi-improved grasslands and often flying in swarms over meadows.

The adult beetles, as above, are reddish coloured, or black and present a very dark appearance in flight.  Walking in the meadows at Ashburnham, East Sussex a few days ago we were surrounded by maybe 100 or more of them flying like small bumble bees and with a similar buzzing sound.  To a non-entomologist this would have been quite a threatening experience, though the beetles are harmless and none actually settled on us.

The reason why the species is called the 'Welsh chafer' I have not yet been able to establish, but I think it is likely to be quite an old name.  The insect seems to be no commoner in Wales than elsewhere.  In Dorset its local name is the 'apple eater' (Dale, 1878), though the larvae live in turf, eating grass and other roots.  Maybe they come up sometimes for orchard windfalls.

Dale, C. W. (1978)  The history of Glanville's Wooton in the county of Dorset.  Hatchards, London

Anyway, if anyone knows the reason for the name Welsh chafer, I would be grateful to hear from them.

Coppice developing

The part of Killingan wood that was coppiced less than 18 months ago is already rapidly scrubbing over with brambles.  There is less and less bare earth and moss left and smaller plants are rapidly being suppressed.  This is not quite what coppice is supposed to do: if violet-feeding fritillary caterpillars were to flourish, for example, the ground would have to remain open for far longer.

It is interesting to speculate whether this used to happen in the past or in different types of coppice rotation.  In terms of forestry it seems to me that the brambles are quite important as they give some protection to the new shoots rising from the tree stools.

The flora continues to provide interest and I some of the most striking are shown below:

Bittersweet or woody nightshade (Solanum dulcamara)

Wild foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) among the brambles.

And some cultivar foxgloves at the woodland edge that must have escaped from a garden.

Marsh thistle (Cirsium palustre), what the gardeners call an 'architectural plant'.

Heath speedwell (Veronica officinalis), a low-growing plant of poor, dry soils.

And ox-eye daisy or marguerite (Leucanthemum vulgare), a plant of meadows and waysides, but quite happy here at the woodland edge.

Yellow archangel: more than meets the eye (or nose).

Yellow archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon) is an attractive dead nettle particularly associated here in South East England with ancient woodland.

It has done very well indeed this year in the area of coppice just up the road and makes a wonderful contrast to the bluebells.

It did not, however, seem a very exciting plant - few insect associates, few medicinal properties and, like many plants that are not actually poisonous, said to be edible when young.

The specific name is also not very inspiring as it is supposed to indicate that the plant smells like a weasel or marten and some claim that weasels smell worse than skunks.

However, after a few minutes research I discovered that yellow archangel is used as a garnish by the celebrated Danish chef René Redzepi, of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma, winner of this year's Restaurant of the Year Award.  See here for some of his recipes:

http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/05/15/327635/rising-star-ren-redzepi-shows-off-some-noma-recipes.htm

Apparently Redzepi sprinkles raw flowers and shoot tips of yellow archangel over a dish of baked celeriac and black pudding also garnished, of course, with salted ramsons seeds pickled in vinegar.  I am sure that the mustelid aroma would add greatly to the quality of this dish.

My family is in for a gastronomic treat this weekend.

Since penning the above I have, in the interests of both science and gastronomy, sampled leaves and flowers of yellow archangel.  I am happy to report that I could detect no unpleasant aroma and the taste was leafy and slightly nutty - a bit coarse, but not disagreeable.

So, maybe galeobdolon (a name coined by ancient Greek physician Dioscorides) has nothing to do with the smell of weasel unless it was used mischievously to deter people from collecting the plant for the kitchen.  Alternatively the word may have something to do with galea the Latin (and ? Greek) for a helmet from the shape of the flowers.  And anyway, perhaps Dioscorides didn't mean yellow archangel as we know it.

Baby orange-tip

In Killingan coppice today I started to look for orange-tip butterfly eggs on the stand of lady's smock (Cardamine pratensis). 

It was almost too easy.  On the first plant I looked at there was a solitary characteristically shaped orange egg carefully placed beneath a flower stalk (see picture below near centre).  They are usually put on their own like as though the mother knows that her caterpillars will have strong cannibalistic tendencies .

 

With a good deal of luck this will have turned into a butterfly by next May.  Below is a female of the species.

White on grey

Today, Bank Holiday Monday, was showery and cold.  Great dark clouds rose up to the east of our garden showing off to perfection the flowers on the wild cherry (Prunus avium).  As Housman wrote "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/is hung with bloom along the bough,"

Cherry trees are the subject of a 3-year survey being organised by the Natural History Museum, though they are largely interested in garden cherries as part of a general interest in the significance of gardens for biodiversity.   See here: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/british-natural-history/tree-survey/index.html

Also foregrounded by the clouds and sunshine were the opening leaf buds of whitebeam (Sorbus aria).