For Tree Following this year I'm following one of the several wonderful old silver birch trees in North Merchiston Cemetery in Edinburgh. Crafty Green Boyfriend and I started walking round this cemetery (and the nearby Dalry Cemetery) every day for our #DailyExercise during the first UK lockdown last year. And we're still doing the same walk regularly, though currently I'm spending time visiting other cemeteries as I'm doing wildlife surveys there for the City of Edinburgh Cemeteries department. And in fact over the last month, I seem to have taken exactly no photos of my birch tree!
Yesterday, however, I visited East Preston Street cemetery, which has several lovely birch trees. So here is a selection of photos of those birches:
one (but only one!) of the trees has a lot of witches' brooms in it.
These growths can be caused by a variety of things, most usually fungi, bacteria or viruses, although they can be caused by insects (you can read more about witches brooms on the Woodland Trust website here).
Beautiful and more or less black and white which makes them more fascinatinf.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that growth on a tree limb was called a witches broom. It's a nice term, might end up sometime in a poem.
ReplyDeleteI like the gnarly old birch! (4th photo, with grass)
ReplyDeleteInteresting shape of the trees. It looks like something happened to them when they were young trees.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photographs, I enjoyed seeing them.
ReplyDeleteAll the best Jan
Hi Weaver, yes it does look quite monochrome.
ReplyDeletejeff - yes it is a good term to use in a poem
Hi Hollis, thanks for commenting. I tried to comment on your blog but couldn't! It's the same with several Blogspot blogs, which doesn't make sense as I'm a blogspot blog too! Anyway, I thought your trees growing round the rock were very interesting.
Erika - a lot of silver birches here grow in interesting shapes, it might be due to the wind.
Lovely trees, and interesting pictures. xx
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