Cricket bat willows

I think I've found some cricket bat willows on the far side of the River Medway to the South of the parish boundary. There seems to be a short almost avenue (although the tree to the front of the group on the left hand side is actually an oak I think). The trees to the right are what I think to be genuine Cricket Bat Willows, usually referred to as Salix alba var. caerulea (Sm.) also known as a cultivar 'Caerulea', much more upright, with branches soaring upwards at an angle of between about 20 to 40 degrees (narrower than the type) from the more or less vertical trunk (although this particular one has been cleft into two, and would certainly be useless for bat manufacture).

Here is a close-up of some more of the trees on the right, ones with straighter trunks. You can start to get an idea of the ruggedly furrowed bark on the trunks, even at this distance. They are in a fairly typical "willow" environment, with the trees' roots half in and out of the roadside ditch.

This is a closer shot of the bark at about chest height, which is described for Salix alba in the Collins Tree Guide as "dark grey; rugged, criss-crossing ridges". It sort of seems to fit, although any decision on these colours can be a real snare and delusion. In fact this bark looks to me in close-up perhaps to be a mid-brown, but largely covered in grey lichen! If so, my ID here may be at error. However good old Clapham, Tutin and Warburg have the description of the species' bark just as "greyish, not peeling, fissured, the ridges forming a closed network". Wikipedia has the bark as "greyish-brown", even better.

Making cricket bats out of the trees is not so easy, and I doubt any of these trees would be much use. Here is a clear description of how it is done.
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/practical-guides/cricket-bat-willow/

And here is more information on grading clefts for bat production, including the vexed issue of grain number - http://www.middlepeg.com/cricketbatwillow.htm. The trees for commercial bat production have to be grown carefully in a controlled plantation, and are harvested at between 15 and 30 years old:

Clearly at least one thing has gone wrong with this trunk below, resulting in a whole clump of stems springing out of what might be some small bolls on the left hand side, and a definite kink in the trunk. These won't be any good for making cricket bats! Commercially produced trees have to have any small side-shoots growing out from the straight trunk rubbed out - at a very early stage!

It's interesting to make the link between the trees and the finished product, as Milton Keynes Parks Trust have done here: http://www.theparkstrust.com/downloads/plants-and-trees/general/Making%20bats%20from%20cricket%20willow.pdf

In fact almost all trees commercially produced in England are from East Anglia, the majority of which are produced by J. S. Wrights of Great Leighs, Essex. Most of the clefts are exported to the Indian subcontinent where they are turned into bats - only a very small specialist industry of bat manufacture actually remains within the UK as seen in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRc4QoRJDDo. Presumably then the finished bats are returned to England for sale in local shops, such as Kent Cricket Direct in Southborough.

Going back to the trees growing along the road to Hartlake, the young shoots are reddish-brown, particularly on their tops, but can look greyish in some lights - due to small short hairs covering the surface? Two year old stems are an olivaceous colour, clearly contrasting with the browner younger shoots.

Willows are also probably very useful for wildlife - here you can see what are probably beetle exit holes in the heartwood, exposed in this knotty wound. The surrounding lichens are also interesting!

This particular tree is probably also quite useful for wildlife:

And I think I may not be the only person (not surprisingly, they are SO interesting) blogging about willows!
http://blueborage.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/willows-and-water.html