20-Jan Colourful Buds of Winter Trees

Willows tend to have small, often pointed buds which are set alternately along their stems and often pressed close against them. White willows Salix alba are more easily identified than most as they have a whitish bloom on their buds, unlike most other willows which posses shiny red-brown buds. Lilacs are also easier to identify as they have two buds at the tip of their shoots rather than the familiar one. Dawn redwoods Metasequoia glyptostroboides are equally unusual, placing their buds underneath their lateral branches where they sit unprotected when nearly all other plants situate them in their leaf axils.

The buds of poplars are often large and pointed. In balsam poplars they are both sticky and smell strongly of balsam. Maples tend to have small buds but unusually set opposite each other on the stem. Elm and birch buds tend to be equally nondescript but are set alternately. Oaks are a little easier with a tendency to cluster their buds at the end of branches.

Spindle trees Euonymus spp. have green bud scales with brown edges and guelder rose Viburnum opulus similarly green buds, but with purple edges.

Alders, Buddhlia, Wayfaring tree and Elder all have no bud scales whatsover, but instead possess miniature leaves pressed closely against the stem affording their buds at least some degree of protection. The Caucasian wingnut Pterocarya fraxinifolia has just got two tiny leaves with nothing but a covering of orange-brown hairs to safeguard its growing tip.

In the case of the walnut Juglans regia this has tiny black buds, but the leaf scar is relatively enormous and much more easily recognisable. These trees also have a conspicuous odour of shoe polish which some people are sensitive to.

Walnuts have been grown here for centuries. The romans are credited with originally importing them from Greece and then planting them across their empire. The latin name of the common walnut Juglans regia means Jupiter’s acorns, indicating how highly they were regarded. At roman weddings the bridegroom would throw some of these nuts for small boys to scramble over. This symbolised the boys were just about to give up their childish pursuits. Virgil believed if the trees had many flowers there was going to be a good corn harvest. People who spent too much time in the shade of the tree were thought to become ill and even smelling the leaves would give them a headache.

It wasn’t until much later that the quality of its wood began to be so esteemed. The fine grain and veining of the heartwood and its ability to take a deep polish meant it became popular for making furniture and gun stocks. It was also used to make roof beams as it was believed they would creak a lot before they split. John Evelyn, the seventeenth century diarist and friend of Samuel Pepys, on hearing they beat the trees in Italy to improve the crop, wrote “I no more believe in that than I do that discipline would reform a shrew”. In his time he would have seen many walnut plantations on the North Downs between Leatherhead and Carshalton. Specimens can still be found in hedgerows and chalk pits but a more interesting wild population of various sizes exists in the Purfleet area. A champion tree of the exceedingly rare Manchurian walnut Juglans mandshurica can be seen in Syon Park.