Monday, April 28, 2008
THE other day, a friend of mine pointed to some hazel catkins and asked "what are those?" I’m surprised at how few tree species most people can identify.
Some get no further than holly. It may have to do with national schools. Many have nature tables and posters on the wall, but it depends on a teacher who has a personal interest — I don’t think tree identification is covered in our teacher-training colleges.
The subject must have been neglected when many people I know went to school. Otherwise, I wouldn’t get asked what hazel catkins are. Even people who can recognise oak, ash and sycamore become bewildered when confronted with a plantation of conifers. So, here’s a quick guide to recognising the commoner forestry conifers.
First, remember that for the past 25 years, all Coillte planting of conifers has been of one species — sitka spruce. They also account for a very high percentage of the conifers planted in private and farm forestry. So, if a plantation is young it’s likely to be sitka.
Sitka spruce has ferociously spiny needles, so your sense of touch is useful in recognising it. They have a distinct, bluish tinge, particularly when wet. The bark has a purple tone in young trees and then goes grey and cracks into plates. The cones are short with crinkled, papery scales.
Norway spruce is grown for Christmas trees and is also found in older plantations, sometimes mixed with sitka, and is superficially similar. Its needles are a dark, matt green, with no bluish tinge and they are soft to the touch. The cones are different; long and pale brown, like Havana cigars dangling from the branches.
Larch is easy to identify, though distinguishing different larch species and their hybrids is best left to the experts. First of all, it’s deciduous. So, a conifer tree in winter with no needles is either a larch or its dead. If it’s covered in little, thumbnail-sized cones, it’s a larch. In summer, larch needles are pale green and very soft. In autumn, they go butter yellow. Mature trees, particularly isolated specimens, hold their foliage in horizontal plates, like mature Scots pines.
Scots pine is never grown as a plantation tree, with the exception of the remains of the old Coronation plantation in Co Wicklow. It’s found in field boundaries, shelter belts and in groves around farm houses, and the bulk of the trees in this country are mature, because it hasn’t been fashionable to plant it for at least a hundred years.
The long needles are in bunches of two, and, apart from its distinctive silhouette with the horizontal plates of foliage, the distinguishing characteristic of mature trees is the bark, which flakes off to reveal patches of salmon-pink and pale green.
Lodge-pole pine was planted as a forestry crop, in peaty soils, in the middle years of the last century. In some places, it has become naturalised, particularly on cutaway bogs. Young trees can be hard to tell from young Scots pines, because the needles are similar and are also held in bunches of two. But the bark is different, cracking into square, grey plates.
Finally, in older plantations or private ones, you might find Douglas fir. Its needles are soft and flexible with a hot, fruity smell. The bark is dark and craggy, sometimes showing orange streaks. The cones have forked bracts, like a snake’s tongue.
* dick.warner@examiner.ie
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