by Miki Marks
The first of February is the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc (pronounced Imulk) – marking the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The sun is still low, but slowly rising along the northerly horizon and is halfway between its most southerly rising point at midwinter and the point at which it will rise at the spring equinox. This seems to have been an important festival celebrating light, fire, rebirth and the stirrings of the season to come.
This midway point was marked in many Neolithic stone circles in the UK and Ireland. Avebury and Stonehenge being the best known, but it is estimated that there could have been 1,300 – many now only vestiges of the original structures. They have been described as enigmatic, but from 1930 to 1970 Alexander Thom studied many of these circles and concluded that they were ancient astronomical calendars, and that it was of great importance to our ancestors to mark the changes in the movements of sun. Robin Heath has continued this archeological/astronomical research and found that these structures were incredibly accurate.
In February, before the deciduous trees come into leaf, it is the perfect time to go for a walk and take a close look at the shape and structure of trees. Each specimen develops slightly differently and has a characteristic shape – due to where it is growing, the soil, water, wind direction, disturbances from animals or humans and how much competition they have from other trees. You might have noticed how a lone oak, with room to spread out, is a most majestic shape. An oak, competing with others in a wood will grow taller to reach the light and will not have as many low growing branches.
One of the main aims of a tree is to reach the light and so you might note that a tree is larger and has more branches in its southern side. If you look, from a distance, at a wood you will see that the trees on the edge are smaller and nearer the centre of the wood, where there is less light, the trees grow taller. A wood, from a distance, if allowed to grow without disturbance, is dome shaped.
A tree which fascinated me was an ash which grew along the North Downs Link at the far end of the Sainsbury carpark. I tried to guess why it grew in such a twisted, contorted shape, as you can see from the photograph taken by my friend Doreen. Had it originally grown round an obstacle or less likely, had some distorting disease? Unfortunately this unique tree – like a whole section of that path has suffered from the attentions of someone with a chain saw.
If you would enjoy being a tree detective I recommend Tristam Gooley’s book How to read a Tree. It is now out in paperback and would just fit in to your coat pocket so that you can take it with you on your rambles.
In February, on a sunny day you might spot a queen bumblebee flying low in search of a nest site. Both male and female magpies are collecting twigs and mud to build or repair their big untidy nests. Flies are emerging, which is good news for hungry birds. By the lane along the side of sports field at Snoxall, at the foot of the hedge, the wild violets will be appearing.
I keep an eye out for the first grass like leaves of the Tragopogon pratensis, which is one of my favourite wild flowers. It has many names including ‘Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon’ (because the flower close at midday), ‘vegetable oyster’ or ‘oyster plant’ (which might give you a clue of the taste of the edible root’) ‘goats beard’ (because of the stunning seedheads), ‘Jerusalem star’, or ‘common salsify’. The attractive flowers are a purpulish blue or yellow. It is a biennial and I have let it establish in my garden. Whilst the old and local names for plants have a charm and a descriptive value – when botany became the subject of scientific investigation it was necessary to find a more exact classification system. The system developed by Carl Linnaeus gained international acceptance. He was a Swedish biologist born in 1707 and died in 1778. He invented a system of taxonomy grouping living organisms into categories using Latin as the lingua franca. It has been said that his work was the bedrock of modern biology and created order and universal naming for life’s diversity.
I hope next month to bring you up-to-date with what is happening at Beryl Harvey Field – Cranleigh’s special Nature Reserve.
