Our mystery South London street tree has been identified thanks to a correspondent who was able to recognise a fine avenue of Hippophae salicifolia. Several others suggested sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) which, as it turns out, was close but discounted due to size (tree rather than a bush), evergreen foliage and few berries. My own guess […]
Tag: street trees
Categories
Stumped: unidentified street tree
On Curlew Street, in that late eighties enclave of converted spice warehouses just east of Tower Bridge on the south bank of the Thames, I have noticed a curious tree. Planted, I imagine, when the area was being cleaned up, they look to me like Giraffe fodder: tall trees with long branches, each bearing a […]
Categories
Strawberry trees in Southwark
I was surprised and excited to bump into a row of newly planted Strawberry Trees (Arbutus unedo) in a Southwark street recently. As a child with an interest in native trees, I was fascinated to read about this mysterious tree with a compelling name in my botanical guidebooks. It was described as very rare and […]
Categories
On another Plane
I’ve been working up to the inevitable London Plane (Platanus x acerifolia) post for some time but this, you may be pleased to know, is not it. Instead I’d like to compare notes on one of it’s parents, the Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis). Two examples of these relatives of the acerifolia (Maple-leaved) tree inhabit Brunswick […]
Around my neck of the woods there are many fine Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) and Whitebeam (Sorbus aria) street trees now super-abundantly laden with ripe, red berries and leaves beginning to take on autumnal hues. With these local fruity indicators appearing, it was time, I thought, to go on my annual quest for chequers, the semi-mythical […]
In the eastern United States, the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) is known as the Ghetto Palm. It’s a name I like, at once descriptive and ironic – I love the effortless way Americans do that with language… Since I wrote about the ToH a couple of weeks ago, I have started photographing them where […]
London Open House is a much anticipated annual opportunity for the nosey, the obsessive and the interested to experience good quality buildings. Every year I make notes to self that I will book a look at the Foreign Office or snoop round a City bank vault, but every year I leave it too late. This […]
Not far from Archway tube station, just off the Holloway Road is a street named St. John’s Villas lined with imposing early Victorian houses on one side and a later, more run-of-the-mill terrace on the other. The street is a cut off Holloway Road heading towards Hornsey Road and like many 19th century city streets […]
Categories
Persian Silk in Globe Street
I was transfixed by the charms of a Persian Silk Tree (Albizia julibrissin) in Southwark today. A most majestic and unusual (for England) street tree, in fact a rarely-planted tree anywhere in the UK, street or otherwise. This is perhaps a cautious test planting to see what happens – the tree has a reputation for […]
Categories
Field Maple’s urban resilience
I admire this gawky and unloved Field Maple – acer campestre – on the Hornsey Road in north London. It couldn’t be further away from the bucolic landscape implied by it’s name. This one fills a space on a busy main road by a row of local shops soaking up traffic fumes and witnessing round […]