12 hours ago
A wander in the beeches is a religious experience
The nature reserve of Burnham Beeches, a couple of miles above Slough's trading estate, is justly famed for its numerous and titular Fagus sylvatica. George Orwell was an admirer; in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 1936, Gordon and Rosemary, on a day out from their drearisome London life, fall into extravagant happiness seeking a suitable epithet for the beech trees there: 'Both agreed that beeches look more like sentient creatures than other trees. It is because of the smoothness of their bark, probably, and the curious limb-like way in which the boughs sprout from the trunk.'
The historic pollarding — pruning at head height — of Burnham's beeches has produced admittedly animalesque trees, but sometimes of writhing agony. Burnham's beeches haunt the mind. They possess soul too, since to enter a summer beech wood is to step into a cathedral: the extraordinary estival density of the foliage produces a mystried gloom.
The other way around, of course, since to enter a cathedral is to enter a beech grove; the Gothic architects of our great houses of prayer were inspired by the beech, with its numinousness and elegant ability to buttress the roof of the heavens.
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There are other wonders at Burnham, such as wood ants, of which the reserve has 500 colonies. Each domed metre-high nest possesses 250,000-plus inhabitants. If ants have a reputation for industry, their cleverness is insufficiently praised. Wood ants lay the grass-and-twig thatch roof on the formicarium in such a way that it acts as a solar panel. Temperature inside the domed abode is regulated by ants opening and closing tiny holes in the roof. Humans call this sun-utilisation 'sustainable eco-living'.
There are six species of British wood ant, but only three are commonly encountered: the northern hairy, Scottish and southern. Burnham's ants are the latter sort, Formica rufa. Reddish, but with a jet-black abdomen. Workers reach 10mm in length, queens a stately 12mm. Their 'flying season' begins in late June, when winged males and queens emerge en masse and take to the air to mate and form yet more colonies.
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Common broomrape is a parasitic perennial, entirely lacking chlorophyll; on first poking through the ground it takes an unseemly mauve hue but soon turns brown, at which point it looks akin to an intricately carved stick. Orobanche minor rarely appears in the singular, coming in platoons.
The veronica bush in our garden is hosting 80-plus broomrapes packed under its shade, with one specimen measuring 61cm. In the bush's twilight zone, the broomrapes present an unearthly spectacle: they have no proper dirt-seeking roots so they suck nutrients out of the veronica's uppermost roots via their 'haustoria', special penetrating tubes.
When not invading gardens, common broomrape succours on clovers, although there are numerous sub-species, including maritima. This latter is vampiric on sea carrots. And the reason for the unattractive name of this unattractive plant? Gerard's Herbal of 1597 notes the plant, or another close member of the Orobanchaceae, growing 'unto the roots of broome', the gold-flowered shrub. The old country names of 'devil-root' and 'hell-root' for Orobanche minor indicates that its infestation of clover in the meadow is historically trying for farmers.
Last week in the Charente, France, my 4km cycle rides to town to 'faire le shopping' were traffic-free, except for pine martens. On one occasion a pair ran along the other side of the road, keeping perfect lane discipline, but mostly the cat-sized mammal ran across the tarmac in front of the bike's wheels. This was in broad daylight.
A member of the weasel family, Martes martes is weaselly recognisable: in addition to the sort of glossy chestnut hair one associates with shampoo adverts, it possesses a stand-out creamy-orange bib. The exact shape and extent of the bib is particular to each individual. In Britain, the pine marten is rare and restricted to the forests of Scotland, northern England, north Wales and small, partly reintroduced populations in southwest England.
The mustelid's French cousin is seemingly carefree about the 'pine' designation, or indeed a definite affinity with woodland. The stretch of 'La France Profonde' for my shopping trips consisted of sunflowers and wheat fields. A sole line of shimmering poplar trees along the brook seems sufficient treeness to satisfy the marten's need to climb and nest above ground, thus beyond the jaws of a predator even bigger and badder than itself: Monsieur Renard.
John Lewis-Stempel's latest book is The Curious Life of the Cuckoo
