Clydesider Magazine contributor, Breeze, shares where and why we can all enjoy some of Scotland’s native trees, particularly around West Dumbartonshire, in this series of short articles.
Words & Photos by Breeze, The Clydesider
The magnificent ash
Balloch Castle Country Park is a place of great beauty and natural wonders. I believe it hosts the most magnificent ash tree in the most stunning location in Scotland. This ash is hundreds of years old and although it has stood on the lawn exposed to dozens of storms over its long life, its strong roots and the intricate buttressing on its trunk have served it well and gripped the land like a vice.
Ash is one of Scotland’s tallest, most graceful and most useful trees. Almost 1,000 species use ash (more than 100 species are almost entirely dependent on ash), including wood mice, liverworts, wrens, blue tits, bats, lichens, fungi and beetles. Bullfinches eat ash keys (seeds) in winter, when food is scarce, and caterpillars of many kinds feed on ash leaves. Ash wood is used in furniture, sports equipment, tool handles and is one of our country’s best native hardwoods for burning.
Ash trees are the third most abundant native tree in the UK and are a vital part of woodland diversity and Scotland’s historic natural identity. Sadly 60% or more of all our ash trees are expected to succumb to the fungal dieback disease called Chalara. Many ash trees have already died or been felled.
Balloch Park’s magnificent ash may have dieback but there is hope that mature ash trees can survive the disease for many, many years. Surely we must do everything we can to look after this living legend?
For the love of Scotland’s oak trees
Oaks have provided people with materials for so much over many, many centuries.
Ships, houses, carts and wheels, furniture, fuel for stoves and warmth, to name just a few.
Yet apparently most people in Scotland can’t identify an oak tree. This is a tragedy.
As well as providing for us, oaks support the widest variety of insect and other life of any tree species in the UK. They also help feed and house many of our favourite mammals and birds.
Tree diseases, pests, global warming, and invasive species like rhododendron ponticum and commercial conifers are threatening many of our native Scottish broadleaf trees, including oaks.
Acute Oak Decline (AOD) was detected in England in 2008 and is gradually spreading north towards Scotland. AOD causes dieback in the crown of the tree and ‘bleeding’ in the trunk.
We need our precious native broadleaf trees now more than ever and it is time we all learned about them again so we can finally give something back to our trees, including reporting signs of disease, telling politicians to protect them, and helping stop them from being destroyed or illegally felled.
Sessile and Pedunculate are the two species of oak native to Scotland and wherever they grow they bring life and beauty.
The Clydeside walk at Levengrove Park is lovely, but it is elevated into something much more evocative by the dappled shade and embrace of the overhanging oak tree.
Levengrove Park’s majestic poplar trees
The Black Poplar Tree was once common in Great Britain, but it is now considered to be our rarest native tree in the wild.
It is a majestic and easily identified tree, with its deeply ridged grey brown bark, heart shaped leaves, long catkins and leaning trunk.
While male trees have red catkins, the female trees have yellowish catkins which are pollinated on the wind and develop into fluffy white seeds that appear like snow on the ground. Black poplars can live for 200 years and grow to more than 100 feet tall.
Our ancestors felled poplar trees for timber for everything from floorboards to cartwheels. Centuries of land use change for agriculture, commercial forestry and development, along with spread of diseases, have all contributed to the black poplar’s decline.
Of the 7,000 or so black poplar trees thought to remain in the wild, only 600 of these are female trees, so it’s a species at risk of dying out in Great Britain.
Thankfully a few environmental charities, including the National Trust, are running projects to try to stem the decline and preserve black poplars to increase diversity in our native woods and provide habitats and food for the many bees, birds and other insects who rely on them.
Hybrid varieties of black poplar, and also non-native white poplar, have been widely planted across the UK.
Levengrove Park’s stately poplar trees seem to know they have a very special view of Dumbarton Rock.
