April round up of woodland trips.

Conventional wisdom suggests that March weather influences the flowering times of spring flora and the Met Office climate maps indicates that March 2018 weather wasn't the best.

Copyright https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts

Copyright https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/anomacts

I'm fairly confident that the weather in April has also been been far from optimal. So here follows some photography trip reports and phenomenological observations on leaf bud and flowering.

Blackmill woodlands SAC

Blackmill woodlands Special Area of Conservation had been on my 'to visit' list for a while, so when an opportunity to visit friends in South Wales arose a detour was made for a quick visit. The wood was sited on a valley hillside underlain by Carboniferous coal measures on the southern outcrop of the South Wales coalfield. Some of the the oaks displayed various stages of leaf bud and leaf flushing although some trees were still in winter dormancy. The SAC notification is for "Old sessile oak woods with Ilex and Blechnum in the British Isles" and all the flora boxes were ticked for that designation to hold. Other flora seen in the wood were bluebells nowhere near flowering, a solitary patch of wood anemones were in flower and so was wood sorrell and carpets of bilberry.  The grasses present were still to develop inflorescences so no positive ID was made and the bryophyte cover noted but time didn't allow further investigation.

Bilberry and contorted oaks.

The erection of exclosure fencing around the wood perimeter had reduced herbivore grazing and the presence of saplings indicated holly and rowan were naturally rejuvenating.

Fallen deadwood.

There was also a noteworthy quantity of standing and fallen deadwood present. It was an all too brief visit and a future visit will be made to investigate further.

The next wood visited was a more local one underlain by lower Devonian sandstones and mudstones. Wind and rain limited photography ambitions to a relatively sheltered area of outsized small leaved lime (tilia cordata) coppice stools suggestive of a great age and an emerging bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) carpet. The small leaved lime, sweet chestnut and oaks were just starting leaf flush.

The third wood visited was in the Wye Valley Woodlands SAC in the upper gorge and underlain by Carboniferous limestone. Heavy rain preceded the visit and the wood was relatively sheltered from a cool northerly wind, the beech trees were in leaf so the first area visited was one where mosses cover the top of a substantial limestone pillar in the gorge.

Whitebeams (Sorbus spp) were conspicuous on cliff edges and ledges with their distinctive pale upright leaf buds and flushing leaves.

Elsewhere the wildflowers in bloom included early purple orchids (Orchis mascula), bluebells, wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa), wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) and ransoms (Allium ursinum) were just coming into flower.

The fourth wood visited was a local woodland underlain by Carboniferous limestones and sandstones with scowles workings. Nearly all the common flora associated with ancient woodland was present and flowering including two separate colonies of Herb Paris (Paris quadrifolia).

An outsize beech coppice stool hosted wood anemones as epiphytes.

A canopy gap allowed some light into the scowles and illuminated the epicormic branches on a beech tree.

That was April and the promise of ramsons and bluebell carpets in May.