Ryarsh Wood

A slow amble with Monty today, and a few

Trosley Country Park

I found one very likely Phyllonorycter tenerella (Joannis, 1915) Hornbeam Midget mine today - In this case much less than half the width of the available lamina between two side veins, and starting at the midrib running well over half the distance towards the margin. The mine was also inhabited, although having torn it open I may well have sealed the fate of this caterpillar to die before it achieved its further pupal and adult potential!

The picture below is of the mine from the upper-side of the leaf - well eaten and browned, narrow and tightly folded, and long. Interestingly there was some further feeding damage and even webbing at the ends of the mine - perhaps caused by something else, possibly a Tortricoid?

Phyllonorycter tenerella is a species of southeastern England, as well as of Europe. There are reasonable numbers of regular records from Kent, high in 2008 and 2009, as for other leaf-miners I think. David Solly seems to have been very good indeed at finding them over the years!

As far as other leaf miners go, there were also some (not many) Phyllonorycter esperella mines on the upperside of the leaves and quite a few Stigmella probably microtheriella mines running largely up and down the veins. I also saw a few galls caused by what I have called "vein mites" Aceria tenella (Nalepa).

The Hornbeams at Trosley are quite variable, some young, some older, some coppiced, some maidens. This one is a moderately young Hornbeam, apparently a maiden, never been coppiced. It does look possibly a bit root-bound!

This one is another potential maiden, but quite a lot older! This suggests that there hasn't been much coppicing going on in this are of this particular woodland for quite a long time. This might match the history of the wood as a private estate, rather than a worked woodland.

There is an older picture of the grounds on the internet, of unknown date, but indicating their amenity nature at that time.

I saw two trees that were covered in fruit, and wondered why the distribution of fruit was so unequal across the woodland. I collected a couple of dozen fruit to see if they could be germinated.

Hazel Wood

Walked down from West Peckham in somewhat murky weather, and into Hazel Wood which had regrown and thickened up considerably since its last coppicing!

The Hornbeam and Oak in the first part of the wood are quite traditional. Further down there is more Sweet Chestnut and Aspen. Birch and Hazel are scattered throughout.

Some of the older Hornbeam and Sweet Chestnuts were in trouble:

On the Hornbeam there wasn't a lot of caterpillar damage, and there were relatively few leafminers and galls. There seemed to be reasonable numbers of probable Stigmella microtheriella and Phyllonorycter esperella, with a very small number of probable Phyllonorycter tenerella.

It was interesting to see that what might have been taken for old summer mines of Phyllonorycter messeniella that were indicated by shortly oblong brown patches had in fact been caused by mines of probable Stigmella microtheriella "cutting off" oblongs of tissue by running up one vein, cutting across from that vein to another, and then down that other, and then cutting back to the first - I need to watch out for this rather unexpected pattern, seen at least three times today!

I was surprised not to see any mite galls in the leaf vein axils, and overall I would say that it was a relatively disappointing walk from both the leafminer and gall point of view. The terrible light and miserable murky conditions did NOT help.

Monty struggled a bit with his back legs.

More leafmines on Hornbeam at Dene Park

Another good walk with Monty, steadily looking for leaf-miners. Today I did reasonably well for Phyllonorycter tenerella, with perhaps half a dozen mines found (none seen before earlier this year - have they just appeared, or have I been missing them??) and even more obvious on the upper-surface were the new blotches of this autumn's generation of Phyllonorycter esperella.

The Hucking Estate

Interesting to see the number of Hornbeam within the older woods, and the very few young Hornbeams in the newer plantings.

Phyllonorycter

On the Hornbeams in the older (ASN?) Woods there seems to be a lot of "caterpillar" style damage in the interior of the woods, leaving very tattered leaves indeed. There was also Phyllonorycter esperella on the upperside of the leaves, both remnant signs of the first generation of mines, and newer mines, some starting to bend the leaves up as they tighten (by the way, how physically DO they tighten?). Some of these appeared to have already left their mines. On the underside of the leaves could be seen long narrow mines, strongly narrowed by the contraction of the mines, with clear single creases running along their mid-lines, possibly Phyllonorycter tenerella. There might have been some Phyllonorycter messaniella mines as well.

Stigmella

There were a few Stigmella mines, probably caused by Stigmella microtheriella from their tendency to follow the leaf veins, but Stigmella floslactella may well have been there as well. One mine seemed particularly broader, a feature I believe more associated with Stigmella carpinella. Again, no signs of the hoped for Bucculatrix, Coleophora, Paracrania or Parornix style mines on this site so far.

Aceria

I did find the apparently common gall mites, Aceria tenella, that live in colonies within hairy "spots", each one in one of the leaf axils. Here is a close up showing the reddish-brown discolouration of the hairs induced by the mite in the axil below the midrib - compare this with the relatively tiny clump of whitish hairs in the normal leaf axil above the midrib just to the right. It is also worth noting the very long whitish hairs of the plant lying along the midrib - what on earth can they be for?