(aka Bike) Part 1889 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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After dumping various offspring at educational establishments I met up with Gordon Ross at the entrance to the woodland the bank had purchased. He was waiting for me and had taken a preliminary look around the edge of the wood.
“I’ll show you what to look for. Most of it’s detailed on this.” He handed me a leaflet–not that sort of leaflet, a piece of paper with pictures and writing on.
I shoved it in my bag and pulled on my gaiters and walking boots. I had a camera with me. and if we found any signs of it I intended to take pictures. Gordon was pessimistic, suggesting that as it was already in Surrey and West Sussex, it was almost certain to be here as well and being dispersed by wind, it meant there was no way of keeping it away if we didn’t already have it. It seemed more inevitable than anything else, simply a matter of time.
We walked through the fallen leaves and it wasn’t long before he spotted an ash tree and sure enough, the signs were of the disease. Lesions on the base of dead branches and on a nearby tree we saw fungal lesions all the way along a dead branch. Parasites infuriated me and I felt angry that this wretched fungus which had come to us courtesy of Denmark, had no brain function, yet had me, the supposed cleverest species on the planet, up an ash tree.
It struck me that the problems with these contagious diseases was, that if they killed all the host species, they’d die as well. Seems they hadn’t thought of that, at the same time they had, because it rarely happens that all the host species die, either because they avoided contact or had some immunity.
Now while trees aren’t that intellectually smart either, they aren’t entirely passive and do produce toxins or other substances to either ward off pests or release substances to warn other plants that an attack is happening. It apparently happens to some plants which are subject to massive infestation with caterpillars. They secrete messenger substances to warn other plants that they’ve been attacked.
Unless it’s middle earth, it’s unlikely the trees can uproot themselves and walk off, let alone go round Tolkein to Hobbits, which is probably just as well, because collecting firewood might be difficult.
After two hours of wandering round the muddy woodland, it looked like we had a real problem, and the disease was present in probably twenty percent of our ash trees. I felt gutted, woodlands and forests would never be quite the same again if we lost all our ash trees, and all because we don’t grow enough timber to meet our own needs as a nation.
Even finding acorns and hazel shells with definite dormouse marks of them didn’t cheer me up. Gordon was pleased to have the shells–I’ve got loads of them–so he could show his kids, and that they were confirmed by an expert, one Dr Cathy Watts, meant he was sure he could show them with certainty.
We walked back along the main ride back to the cars. I’d have to visit the place again with the bank’s surveyor and see exactly where he was suggesting we put the field centre, because if it was where I thought it was, I’m going to object. There is a group of oak trees which have trunks a dozen or twenty feet in circumference. They’re probably a couple of hundred years old, and I want a preservation order on them to prevent any felling.
Goodness knows what species of animal or plant we have here but some of the scarcer ones might include purple hairstreak butterflies and white hairstreaks, I was sure some of the trees were wych elms. Wych is an Old English word meaning pliant, so it’s elm trees with bendy boughs.
The ash dieback did worry me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I should have been elated, a whole wood for me to play around in whenever I want–but I felt down–not sure if I was up to directing the project or even directing the efforts to control the tree disease. How many more of these bloody diseases were we to become affected by, if it’s not ash dieback, or blue tongue in ungulates, or myxomatosis in bunnies it would be some as yet hitherto unknown disease affecting whatever we held dear. God, I hope it’s not some virus that kills dormice, then I would have to shoot the Pope and his god. Sometimes I think the Cathars and Gnostics were right, assuming there was some sort of deity, it’s as imperfect as his creation, and answers to the name of Demiurge. Thankfully, it doesn’t exist along with any other of the sky pixies.
I got back in the car and had time to grab a sandwich from a corner shop before I went to collect the girls. Somehow ash dieback had cost me most of the day. The girls had known where I was going and asked me how it had gone.
“There’s a significant number of infected trees, which we’ll need to fell and burn.”
“We’ll help to chop them down, Mummy,” she offered.
“We won’t be chopping anything, we’ll do it with chainsaws, which are noisy and dangerous.”
“Will you be chainsawing, Mummy?”
“I doubt it, darling. They require a certain amount of strength to use because they’re quite heavy and they can kick back and take off arms and legs, or even heads.”
Three young women made gagging noises in the back seat.
“Will Daddy help you?”
“No we’ll leave it to people who’ve been trained to fell trees.”
“Can’t we use the wood for the fire in the lounge?”
“We’re not supposed to move it around in case the spores of the fungus get even more distributed, especially to trees which weren’t already infected.”
“What is spoes, Mummy?”
“Spores, Meems, are like dust but they’re actually like seeds of the fungus. It’s how it spreads. Like dust blown about in the wind.”
“If I don’t eat any more beans, will that help, Mummy?” Trish pretended to ask this in all innocence, but I’ve seen her do it before. Which when I ask her what she means she goes on about beans creating wind.
“I hate to say it but we’re talking about the wind, not flatulence.”
“Wossat?” asked Livvie.
“A posh word meaning farts,” answered Trish, and I tried not to catch her eye in the mirror or we were likely to run off the road.
Comments
I did try to
copy a link to the Forestry Commission with photos of Ash dieback disease but it wouldn't let me. If you google it, you should find the link yourselves asily enough.
Angharad
We have the spruce pine beetle here in BC
that is killing off Spruce trees by the thousands. This beetle isn't new but used to be kept in check by dying off during cold winters in the mountains. Unfortunately with climate change, the winters are not as cold as they used to be, and the beetles have reproduced in huge numbers, wiping out complete forests. There seems to be nothing we can do to stop them.
I guess I should...
I guess I should be Tolkein to you about this here story. :-) It's been fun. You're having your issues with the Ash. We're having issues with our Elms (among other things). Your parasite came from Denmark, ours - apparently - from Holland. (I see you also have the Dutch Elm Disease over there...) {And, further hmmm... The article I saw indicates that Dutch Elm disease, like the Ash Dieback, may have originally come from Japan.}
I dunno how reputable The Telegraph is, but this article spells out much of the issue.
As you've pointed out more than once introducing a new species into an area is not guaranteed to be helpful to the local species. Just ask the Australians how they like Rabbits.
Thanks,
Annette
I love it.
Leave it to people who've been trained to feel trees. (Was that genuine or tongue in cheek, I absolutely love it!)
I still firmly believe we should let the disease run it's course and only cut down trees that become dangerous.
Still lovin' it.
XX
Bev.
Um, no...
..it was a cock up, I mean typo.
Angharad
Feel Trees
Sounds like a Monty Python sketch.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Letting nature take its course
I have to agree with that one, Bev. How are the trees going to develop immunity if we cut down everything. Let the ones that can stand up to the disease and survive reproduce and spread their good genes.
Trust Trish
to come up with a comment like that!
There's a line in 'Big Yellow Taxi' which sprang to mind; 'They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.'
S.
Leave it to Trish
to know the meaning of a posh word.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Some info on ash dieback (Chalara Fraxinea)
Managed to find this site with a couple of interesting video clips. I hope they are viewable outside the U.K.
http://treedisease.co.uk/threats-to-our-trees/ash-dieback/wh...
Here in Indiana USA
and other places, we're fighting the imported Emerald Ash Borer. Kills the tree dead quickly. It costs about $200.00 a year to treat one tree. And you have to do it for several years in a row.
Ash Trees
You have Ash Dieback on your side of the "pond" and we have the Emerald Ash Borer in the states. I almost seems that Momma Nature has it out for the poor Ash tree.
Nature wants a piece of ash?
So far, our ash trees are doing fine. (knock on wood.)
The ash borer is actively being battled here in Michigan. Recently, the DNR (or someone like that) ran some tests on the trees adjacent to our road.
Down where the borer is an active pest, they are cutting the trees and using them for lumber. The wood has to be kiln dried to ensure that it is infection free. I'm not sure what they do with the leaves and branches. Turning them into wood pellets would work well, as would composting them at a high enough temperature to sterilize them.
By the way, all of these pests are mere setbacks. The American chestnut, elm, and ash trees are far from extinct. The elms aren't as majestic as they once were, but they are still growing and reproducing. In a short span of time, geologically speaking, they will have evolved to a point where they are once more the majestic trees that they once were. We have a nice one in our yard that's fighting the good fight.
Good Episode, but
not being an expert on plant diseases and treatment, I will leave that discussion to the knowledgeable ones here.
I believe everything they say, because only the truth is allowed on the internet.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
forestry.gov.uk
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/Symptoms_guide_Chalara_diebac...$FILE/Symptoms_guide_Chalara_dieback_of_ash_2012.pdf
Found the above site. available out side UK, at least in the US where I am.
Invasive foreign diseases
With our (human's) capacity for global travel we can't help but bring along visitors we really don't want. Unfortunate but inevitable.
Spanner in the works.
The hand of man has been performing this function for many a thousand years. I just hope we can grow in wisdom faster than we have over the last 20 to 30 years with the drive to deregulate. It is a shame to loose the great trees to the bungling of fools.
Huggles
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Typical Trish
and that i have to say is the best ever description of flatulence i have ever seen .... Good job Simon and Danny weren't there though otherwise the conversation would have no doubt reached new depths...
Kirri
Concerning Fungi and Trees
Lady Dr C is being a wee bit partisan referring to the fungus as a parasite and denigrating all parasites. There are complex relationships between trees and fungi - the roots of trees have no root hairs, but the hyphae of fungi invade them in the soil and serve the function of bringing nutrients and water to the trees, also linking many trees together, in a mutually beneficial relationship called a symbiosis. As a tree begins to age, the fungi invade through the trunk and help to break down the wood, fruiting bodies emerge along the trunk, and the hyphae now help to soften the bark, allowing all manner of invertebrates including woodlice access. More fungi become involved and the minerals trapped in the tree become free for other species to consume. Before humans began to interfere, the rotting of the old, now dead tree proceeded as far as leaving just a heap of moss covered humus from what was a fallen trunk, and a hollow mound where once a tree stump protruded. In a few Scandinavian forests one still can find such natural woodland, in Britain I fear there is no competely natural woodland left - certainly I have never seen any. Wild mushrooms (the English call them "toadstools") are nearly all highly edible and nutritious and were once highly appreciated, but today the Brits think that they are all poisonous - very few actually are.
In the time of King John, whose quarrels with the Nobles led to the drawing up of the Magna Carta, which in fact was totally irrelevant for the non noble majority, another document, the Minor Carta, was also written, that ruled that the People had the right to enter all woodlands and to collect fallen wood, berries, nuts, fungi and such like that they found useful. This more important law is mostly ignored these days, and it can be quite difficult to enter a wood, as most have fences around them. It can also be quite dangerous - during my time at college I was doing a population study on woodlice to determine just how many lived in a small area of woodland, by on successive nights labelling 100 with a blob of a non toxic paint, then checking the next night to see how many of my new 100 had my mark on them, and repeating this a third night with a different mark, for greater accuracy. One cold, wet, dripping night I was kneeling on the leaf mould, with my red lamp and paint bottle and click counter and note pad, when suddenly I felt a gun in my back and a Gamekeeper demanded to know what I was up to in HIS wood ! Whoops ! What a shock !
From whence come all these "new" diseases and fungal invaders ? Most of them have been around for a long time but a sudden mutation enables them to invade another host, or changes their physiology so that they can survive where before they could not. This is just Evolution in Action. Host species mutate too, and ash trees will doubtless evolve to be immune to the die back fungus in time.
Don't you all just love the way Angharad involves current events in her epic ? It adds so much verisimilitude to the Story ! Thank you Angharad, for giving us all this wonderful alternative univers to live in.
May you be blessed.
Briar
The Charter of the Forest
Often called The Charter of the Forest, which reserved what we would now call "The Commons" to the people of the land. In these days of rampant Corporatism, of course, the quaint notion that "the people" have any rights at all has been superseded by rational Capitalism, which treats everything (including many people, or at least their lives) as property.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Climax forests and rotting wood
There are a few untouched forests here in America, but most are managed in one way or another. We have five or six acres on planted red pine on our property. The adjacent Manistee National Forest has a bunch of planted pine, and a whole bunch of relatively untouched land.
If you clear a plot of land, plants will grow back in a specific order. This progression can become cyclic, or it can progress to a point where it is stable. The stable form is called a climax forest. You'll find them here and there. For instance, there is at least one in the Detroit area. It is at the Proud Lake recreation area, and is surrounded by a whole bunch of suburbia. Move to the less densely populated areas, and it isn't that rare.
If you want to see some wooded areas where the trees are allowed to decompose down to moss-covered humus, I can show you quite a bit. Some of our property is difficult to hike through because of all the fallen logs in various states of decay.
Ironically, some of the less disturbed vegetation is in the highway medians. After all, who bothers to stop and mess with it? It was left untouched when the highway was built, and has been undisturbed since.
Need some ash
There is a varmint called the emerald ash borer (a beetlie bug) that is causing problems a couple hundred miles from here. I guess it's only a matter of time before they make their way up to our nice little parcel of woodland. I guess we had better enjoy our ash trees while we have them.
Years ago, it was the Dutch elm disease that was causing trouble. We have a bunch of relatively small elm trees near the front of our property. They grow up to perhaps forty or fifty feet tall, then die. They tend to be long and skinny rather then the inverted broom shape of a healthier tree.
We do have one right next to the house that seems to be doing OK. It has some signs of infection, but it isn't dying back.
Unfortunately, a very nice chestnut tree is dying back in the neighboring property. bummer bummer bummer. Blasted chestnut blight.
But... while some specific species are having problems, the ecosystem as a whole is doing well over here.
Siting the visitor centre
Given a significant number of the woodland's ash trees are going to be felled, surely that could present Cathy and the bank with the obvious solution: if any of the ash trees are in clumps rather than spread evenly throughout the wood, then it's possible that felling them may create a clearing large enough for the visitor centre...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!