More on Salix city

I walked around the Ocean, anticlockwise, more slowly than the other day, and keeping an eye on as many trees as possible between the path and the lake.

Crack Willows

The first thing I thought was that at the southern end of the Ocean there is a lot of the Crack Willow, Salix fragilis (L.), the majority of the trees on the skyline. Mixed in were Ash, Grey Willow, Alders, Hawthorn, Blackthorn. The upperside of the Crack Willow leaves at this time of year are mid-green and quite glossy, with a whitish grey on the underside. The tip is quite acuminate, while the serrations on the margin are quite prominent, and somewhat uneven. The petiole is generally over 1 cm long, the twigs glossy but of variable colour, or there may be several different types present.

Crack Willow is a complex species aggregate, both in the UK and on the continent. There are many clonal variants, generally unisexual, and most of them are likely to have originated in the catchments and other areas from human activity of one sort or another. The taxonomy is very difficult. The leaves do seem to be a bit more subject to Willow Anthracnose, in comparison to the White Willow, Rusty Willow and Osiers covered below.

I was puzzled not to see obvious glands, usually figured projecting in odd shapes from the junction of the petiole and lamina.

White Willow

Salix alba appears generally to have smaller, neater, leaves obviously glistening white as they billow in the breeze. Close up it may be difficult to see the tiny hairs, except on the edges in profile, in with the minute serrations. The stems are initially silkily pubescent as well, going yellowish as they age. No stipules visible in September, and I didn't see any glands on the petiole.

Osiers

To the south and southeast, and again to the north there are good individual plants and patches of the Common Osier, Salix viminalis, L. One plant had very narrow smaller leaves, and could perhaps have been var. angustissima, but Meikle states that almost any plant will degenerate into this state if sufficiently neglected.

The shoots are generally upright, on what to me seem quite rounded bushes. The short indumentum covering the underside of the leaves and the stems and next year's buds is very attractive. On the stems the indumentum extends about half way down the current year's growth, making the younger stem a lovely silky dull green, but as it wears away, leaving a glossy green epidermis on the older stem. Last year's growth has an matt olive-brown bark covering it. The upperside of the leaves is a dull green, hardly lustrous at all. The revolute margins and the undulations are quite obvious. The underside of the leaves are silky grey with the thousands of tiny apressed hairs, and lots of small veins curving strongly towards the tip, which project downwards below the lamina, so leaving a tiny dip on the upperside of the leaves, and repeating the pattern along the incredibly long laminas. The leaves are often tattered and damaged, perhaps by leaf beetles and/or leafhoppers.

There are, but quite difficult to spot, very long, lanceolate, almost linear stipules. The canaliculate (not very obvious in September) petioles have large boat-shaped bases covering a large proportion of the bluntish woolly catkin-buds laid down for the following year, giving the string of pearls effect noted in the Collins guide. The indumentum of the stem is pierced by orange-brown stomata, generally with a central split. 

Leybourne and Salix city

Its all very difficult when you want to start to get to grips with the genus Salix. At Leybourne there is plenty of scope and there may be Salix alba, Salix fragilis, Salix caprea or Salix x reichardtii, Salix cinerea, and Salix viminalis, together with a large number of variants, cultivars and hybrids. I have suddenly remembered that there is a reference collection of Salix at the Sevenoaks Wildlife Reserve!

This is a suspected Salix cinerea ssp. oleifolia, but it will need checking and re-checking! I noticed one strium on the small section of last year's wood I remembered to collect.

Llyn Brenig

Off to Llyn Brenig reservoir, where there were good common wildflowers, very few birds, and not much at all in the way of insects!

I was very glad to see more Smooth Hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris, along the roadsides, having identified it at Bod Petrual yesterday. This is the Hawksbeard I have most commonly seen in the past I think, and is said to be the only common one with smooth rather hairless leaves and stems. The involucre by contrast with the rest of the plant, is rather bristly, as with most Hawksbeards! The first thing to note about Hawksbeards is the distinct double row of involucral bracts, the outer ones either adpressed or spreading.

NOTE - in retrospect I would have liked to be more careful with my ID, as I feel it is potentially easy to confuse with the Marsh Hawksbeard, Crepis paludosa, although I think that is even more bristly on the involucre. These two species are most easily separated in fruit, and the relatively short achenes that I picked out the following day, did appear slightly curved, suggesting the Smooth Hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris. The Marsh Hawksbeard, Crepis paludosa, together with the Beaked Hawksbeard, Crepis vesicaria, are two of the few other species that I am ever likely to come across in Wales - together with the largely introduced Rough Hawksbeard, Crepis biennis.

If I look further into these I really do need another excellent Loupe lens! However even I was able to see that this plant branched from near to the base, eliminating the Marsh Hawksbeard, Crepis paludosa, from consideration, which only branches half way up. Another fairly obvious feature was the adpressed second/outer row of involucral bracts, a feature I believe only shared between these two of the commoner species, so if it isn't paludosa, it really should be capillaris! The styles should be yellow rather than blackish-green. A further difference is that the pappus of capillaris is a flexible pure white, while that of paludosa is a brittle yellowish or brownish-white, rather like a member of the Hieracium genus, with which it seems intermediate. Much less clear was any orange tinging to the outer florets, which may or may not be a feature of this species, among others.

The flowers are about 1 - 1.5 cm in diameter, but can be as much as 2.5 cm across. The involucre is generally wider at the base than the middle. The stem leaves are small and lance-shaped, with few lobes, apart from the two spreading basal lobes, that seem to gradually develop. The BRC Plant Atlas points out that it is a ruderal, and morphologically variable. The basal leaves, while present should be much more greatly lobed than the stem leaves, almost filigree, but I didn't see any of these!

These are the upper stem leaves, with their arrow-shaped backward-pointing lobes at the base.

I can compare this plant with the one tentatively identified at Cliffe Pools on the 6th September 2014. The colouring of the outer florets appears different, and the degree of darkening of the bracts, but the stem is similarly channelled. Also noted on Warkworth Beach, 26th June, 2015. The degree of variation is extreme, making it "polymorphic"!

I have already eliminated the Northern Hawksbeard, Crepis mollis, from the possibles, as it has not been found in Clwyd since 2000, and in only one tetrad then. A perennial with a short rhizome, it has a longer, 20-ribbed achene. http://www.bsbi.org.uk/Crepis_mollis_species_account.pdf. Worth keeping an eye out for though!

Bod Petrual

A nice walk around this Forestry Commission site, with some buzzards seen, and three wrens heard. Some different passerine calls were heard overhead and in the trees, but nothing I could distinguish for sure, except one Great Spotted Woodpecker that flew over the path, calling.

The Hypericums along the pathside all had black streaky lines on the petals, which, despite the key to the genus in Francis Rose, makes them Hypericum maculatum, or perhaps possibly the hybrid Hypericum x desetangsii. I think I need to look lower down the stem for the square section, and most other things seem to fit, translucent veins but no spots in the leaves, no stalked black spots on the sepals, . However the sepals might seem to be not quite blunt enough, according to the BSBI crib sheet diagrams.

There were Spiny Sowthistle and one clump of Perennial Sowthistle, a Hawksbeard, Catsear, Common Birds-Foot Trefoil, Meadow Vetchling, Gorse, Lesser Spearwort, Creeping Buttercup, Field Buttercup, Upright Hedge Parsley, Bramble, Greater Sallow, Birch, Rowan. Lesser Knapweed was nearer the car park. 

A Screech Owl while bat monitoring

While Pam and I were doing the second bat walk of the year, we heard an unearthly screeching across the fields towards Golden Green. A moment later a dark shape flew over and I called out "owl". Pam's torch revealed a pale body and wings, and we had seen a Barn Owl. The old country name was "Screech Owl", although this was the term also used for Tawny Owls and Little Owls, at least in some parts of the country. The sharpest call is however definitely that of the Barn Owl, Tyto alba.

As we were getting back in the cars we heard several Tawny Owls, Strix aluco, calling as well, slightly more tunefully.

Oare before the torrential rain

At the front of the East Flood there were a couple of Ringed Plover with the larger flocks of Golden Plover, resplendent in their black and gold.

Here is the best photo I got of the Ringed Plover, Charadrius hiaticula. The rounded cheek pattern is clear, and I am fairly convinced of the stout bill, but rather less so of the orange as opposed to pink legs!

There was a Meadow Pipit, with very clearly pink legs, feeding on the mud close to the road:

A Little Stint (on the left) was feeding and chasing a Dunlin around a muddy spit fairly close in,

Leybourne Lakes

Common Blue Butterflies were starting to roost on the flowerheads in the meadow, but the first butterfly I saw roosting was actually a Brown Argus, with the two spots vertically, rather than horizontally arranged:

and this is a male Common Blue,

and another, from the upperside,

There were some fascinating Rose Sawfly larvae, the more orange species, Arge ochropus, massacring the leaves on the wild roses in the meadow.