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20 European Trees
Because of the lengthy growth cycle of trees I have to adopt a different approach to visually record them. Unlike plants, whose flowering cycle may last only a few days or weeks, trees change their appearance throughout all four seasons of the year. Their change in size takes much longer to see... often centuries. I plan to dedicate a separate age to each of the four seasons for every tree on my list... that way I can make an initial entry to read and then add information, observations and photographs to the thread.
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Apple Tree
I see new drifts of colors... not single fragile blooms picked out against the earthy colors of farmland - a muted palette of greens and browns at this time of the year - but explosions of vividness highlighted in sunlight coming from just above the horizon... at other times like confetti caught in a breeze...
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Horse Chestnut
Although not native to the British Isles, the Horse Chestnut must be the most easily recognizable tree of all the many species established in towns and parks, both for it’s beautiful appearance and the game of conkers...
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Plum Tree
My eyes followed the erratic flight of a particularly striking Comma butterfly as it fluttered between the still largely bare shrubs and trees in the orchard. Trees bare, that is, apart from two covered in a carpet of blossom...
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Quince Tree
In illustrating the blossom, which is almost over here in France by mid-April, I’m passing on the marmalade and jelly recipes until the autumn when I will hopefully have fruits to hand both for the kitchen and to photograph. How odd that such a hard, tart fruit can result from such a beautiful flower...
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Walnut Tree
For a tree that grows so rapidly - attaining a height of perhaps 20 feet within the first decade and 70-90 feet overall when mature - and in the middle of anywhere, it's a wonder that the Walnut is so revered by farmers, but in France they grow everywhere...
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Citrus Fruit Wrappers
Not exactly a tree... but older tissue paper wrappers from their transported and marketed fruits! I have collected around 200 examples of orange, lemon, tangerine, clementine, apple and pear fruit tissues... originally as an interest for my young daughters over 30 years ago.
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Good field guides are a great help in identifying trees throughout the seasons - especially in winter when, with deciduous trees, there is only the basic skeletal outline to observe and so many trees look the same to the untrained eye. In summer and autumn the Oak and Horse Chestnut leaf is simple to identify, and in any season the shape of the Willow is clearly distinguishable... but as there are at least a dozen types of Willow to be found in Europe, which varieties have you seen? My examples will not be based on spread throughout the region, nor popularity... but simply specimens which I came across on my travels and thought interesting enough to photograph and write about.
For detailed information I frequently refer to my set of “Familiar Trees” by G. S. Boulger, published in three volumes by Cassell & Co. Ltd in 1907, but being over one hundred years old they are long out of print and will be hard to find... and where a Google search can be your friend!
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