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COUNTRYSIDE NEWS March 2017 Wildlife Around and About East Lothian
I was wandering around in some woods the other day; well, I say “wandering around” – there were actually two of us rangers trying to educate and entertain a class from the local primary school. We were thinking about the lack of colour in a winter woodland (at least compared to spring/summer), when suddenly we came across a veritable swathe of bright yellow flowers. This may have spoilt the point I was trying to make, but it was a very welcome sight. The plant in question was the winter aconite, a member of the Ranunculaceae family which also includes buttercups and anemones. As the name suggests this is a winter flowering plant, usually blooming between January and March and often seen at the same time and place as snowdrops. A cursory glance at winter aconites shows their superficial resemblance to buttercups, although things are a bit more complicated than that. The six yellow petals are actually sepals – there are no true petals. Sepals are an outer layer of the flower’s structure, whereas petals are an inner layer. It’s a small distinction, but it’s the sort of thing that some botanists get Winter aconite worked up about. Just to further mess you about, the large “leaf” just below the flower is actually a group of three bracts – the true leaves usually don’t flourish until the flowers have died back. Later in the month winter aconites will tend to become less obvious, but may be replaced by a close relative, lesser celandine. They can be told apart relatively easily, since lesser celandine have more open flowers with up to twelve petals and fleshy, heart-shaped leaves. Right then, enough of this talk of winter; spring officially starts later this month. So let’s look at a spring-flowering plant which should be in bloom by the end of March. Blackthorn is a member of the rose family and is often found in hedgerows alongside its relative hawthorn. In this heavily managed form it usually appears as a dense spiny shrub, but if left to its own devices it can grow up to about seven or eight metres. Like the winter aconite, and other early flowering plants, the flowers appear before the leaves. This can make the blackthorn relatively easy to spot in a mixed hedge in spring. During March hawthorn (and other species) will be greening up, as the leaves gradually open. However, blackthorn will be devoid of leaves but Blackthorn in flower covered in creamy white blossom, making it stand out from the crowd. Some people will say that the best thing about blackthorn is that it produces sloes and therefore (indirectly) sloe gin. Now, I’ll not argue that this isn’t a good thing, but the absolute best thing is how valuable it is to other wildlife. The flowers provide nectar and pollen for early flying bees, while the buds and leaves are food for a number of butterfly and moth caterpillars. The dense, thorny branches provide excellent cover for nesting birds, who will also feed on the sloes later in the year. Or perhaps the best thing about blackthorn is that it was supposedly used to make witches’ wands and wizards’ staffs. So, booze, folklore and biodiversity all in one tree. Lovely.