Richard Cowell from the Rowley Wood community group with a magnificent cherry tree, probably well over 100 years old, beside a road in Leavenheath. The tree is said to be a Polstead Black, and we would like to know if it really is. Almost all the hundreds of Polstead Black trees in existence today are clonal versions of the tree in the National Fruit Collection and have been grafted onto the dwarfing Colt rootstock by nurserymen for sale. This tree has no obvious signs of being grafted and is maybe growing on its own roots – if so, it’s very likely to be a seedling. Recently STOG has grafted wood from the NFC’s tree onto wild cherry seedlings that could ultimately make trees like this.
In August 2013 a group of STOG cobnut enthusiasts spent a day with Meg Game, ecologist and Secretary of the Kentish Cobnut Association (left), in her cobnut plat in Kent and at John Canon’s collection of nearly 50 cobnut varieties on his nut plat nearby.
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