common ash | everyday nature trails

Tags

common ash, dog mercury, eristalis pertinax, Fairy Glen, fern fronds, garlic mustard, horse chestnut, sycamore leaves, tapered drone fly, wild arum, woodland flowers, woodland wildflowers

Recent rainfall has given a boost to the growth of new vegetation and in the woodlands fresh greenery, in a myriad of shades and forms abounds….

Perfect new leaves of Sycamore - Acer pseudoplatanus

Oak before ash, in for a splash

Ash before oak, in for a soak ..

Leaves of the Ash tree are breaking from their tight buds

Horse chestnut trees seem to be in differing stages of growth; some still have new leaves breaking from their ‘sticky-buds’, others are in full leaf , while yet others are flowering.

Horse chestnut leaves breaking from their 'sticky-bud'

A fully open horse chestnut leaf

Horse chestnut tree with flower buds

Eristalis pertinax -Tapered drone fly - basking on new leaves of bramble - rubus

A fern frond unfurling

Another 'garlicky' plant; Garlic mustard -Alliara petiolara is an erect herb of open woodlands and disturbed soil that has dark green, heart-shaped, scallop-edged, deeply veined, long-stalked basal leaves that grow up to 5" across. Leaves are a food plant of the Orange Tip butterfly larvae.