willows

On Saturday evening I took the field edition of Clapham, Tutin and Warburg with me, and went to look at the willows on a couple of nearby sites - the old railway line running behind my house, and the meadows on the south side of town.

There appear to be five types of willow growing along the old railway line. There is sufficient variation among the leaves of sallows that I suspect that there are two species present, probably Salix caprea and Salix cinerea. The other types appear to be almond-leaved willow (Salix triandra), osier (Salix viminalis and one which keys out as a sallow-oiser hybrid (the oiser-like habit supports this indentification).

The meadows had a single isolated tree of crack willow (Salix fragilis) (I encountered a second one elsewhere on the meadows today) and a population of what appear to be sallows, but with prominently red twigs.

For the time being I am adding crack willow to the list, and holding fire on the others pending further study.

I was aware of the presence of aspen (Populus tremula) and blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) growing at the northern end of the old railway line, but had discounted them as possibly being planted. While checking out the willows I encountered both these species growing in convincingly wild situations. While blackthorn is common in hedges in the area, this is the first I've seen that I've been confident wasn't planted. I also found, as another new species, broad-leaved whitebeam (Sorbus latifolia agg.)