Quercus Robur

A plant to learn!

[learnplants]

Back again! Today, we have a very spooky fungus, scientifically called Hydnellum peckii, or commonly Devil's Tooth! It's a non-toxic fungus that, despite its name, is actually beneficial for conifer forests, and is often found in late summer and autumn!

Devils tooth grows about 10cm tall at most, but as small as 3cm! The cap is between 3-8 cm across when fully developed and is usually round but can be oval or multi-lobed! The young caps also secrete a red ooze as they grow, but generally stops when it reaches maturity!

Underneath the cap, the fungus doesn't have gills! It instead has spines, but very small ones, being between 1-5mm long and below 1mm in diameter!

The stem is quite variable, being as tall as 5 or 6cm but it's been seen as small as 0.5cm, but this is because the fungus stem is predominantly underground!

The fungus has a beneficial relationship with conifererous trees, sometimes called a symbiotic relationship, but in the fungus world, it can be called 'ectomycorrhizal'! The tree will give the fungal system, or mycelium, sugars, made during the photosynthesis process, and the fungus will give the tree access to more nutrients, because the fungus can burrow deeper than the trees roots! What a good friend!

The fungus derived its name from the greek word for 'edible mushroom' "hudnon"! The peckii comes from honouring an American mycologist called Charles Horton Peck!

Overall, Hydnellum peckii, or devils tooth fungus, is a beneficial fungus for conifer trees and an edible mushroom for people, albeit a very bitter and not tasty one! Fell free to like, comment and reblog, and follow for more! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today, we have a fungus! One that you've probably heard of already! It's called Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis or more commonly, cordyceps or the zombie ant fungus! This fungus was made popular because of the last of us video game franchise, even if it's portrayal is rather inaccurate!

Cordyceps is a rather rare fungus, to such a degree that scientists aren't completely certain of the biomes it can live in! It's been observed in tropical rainforests, but they aren't all that thrilled to study it, understandably so!

Cordyceps gains it's other common name, zombie ant fungus, because that's exactly what it does! The spores land on the exoskeleton of a carpenter ant, for this example, and slowly penetrates through until it reaches the inner flesh of the ant! From here, the fungus begins to spread throughout the host, consuming the non-essential systems of the ant, gradually replacing flesh with mycelium!

As it reaches the ants brain, we believe the fungus either floods it with chemicals in order to lead the ant to its final destination, or attaches just right to send the right impulses to force the ant to its final destination, either way, it then stops the ant, and leaves it standing in a high up position, before bursting back out of the exoskeleton with some mushrooms, which consume what's left of the ant, and grow, and finally begin the cycle again, releasing a lot of spores in hopes of infecting more ants!

It's a very interesting fungus that doesn't have a lot of recorded data about! Which means, unfortunately, this is all I can share about it! Maybe, someday, some mycologists will research it more, just without making the last of us a reality! Anywho, if you liked reading about it, like, comment, reblog and follow for more! Anyways, here it is!

[learnplants]

For our next spooky season plant, we have Atropa belladonna, or more commonly known as deadly nightshade! This is a rather inconspicuous and ordinary looking plant with purple flowers, but looks can be decieving! This is one deadly poison!

It's a perennial shrubby plant that has green, oval-shaped leafs which are untouched and lead to a point! They develop in an alternating pattern, and are poisonous! The flowers are purple and grow about 3cm long, or about an inch, and look slightly wrinkled!

When pollinators, usually bees, have pollinated the flowers, the petals with and die, and are replaced with berries! These berries are shiny and black and grow with 5 sepals, which are like a small leaf-like part where the berries attach to the plant! These too are poisonous! The whole thing is poisonous, don't touch them and definitely don't eat them!!

They're usually found in chalky areas and where the ground has been disturbed, normally in woodlands but they can also be found on the side of paths and on banks! In the north of the UK they can be found more sparsely and are usually the remnants of times when people grew them for medicinal purposes! That's right, in olden times, people would consume the plant in order to ease abdominal pain and motion sickness, but it's not recommended now! Eye surgeons nowadays still use it, as the poison, when it's incredibly refined, causes the pupils to dilate when dripped in!

The berries are usually avoided by almost every animal, however some birds do eat them if they're desperate! Also, rabbits and even cows eat them too! In mythology, it was said that deadly nightshade, or Atropa belladonna, was the property of the devil! Which means that anyone eating from the berries was punished, hence the poison!

Overall, Atropa belladonna, or deadly nightshade, is a very spooky plant, since it looks so ordinary but is a very deadly poison! If you liked learning about this spooky plant, feel free to like, comment and reblog to spread awareness! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

For today's plant, we have a rather unnerving one! We will be talking about Actaea pachypoda, or it's common name, white baneberry, or doll's eyes! You'll see why at the end!

Doll's eyes is a hardy deciduous perennial, that typically grows 80cm tall and 40cm across! The leafs are unremarkable, being simply green and serrated, leading to a point at the end, but the flowers are another story! They grow white in a cluster, making them stand out against the vaguely bushy structure of green it grows on! They flower in the spring, being a fairly welcome sign of life after winter!

Once the flowers are fertilised, by beetles, solitary bees and syrphid flies, all of which are native to the same place as the plant, Michigan, it'll develop fruit! These come in the shape of berries, very similar to cranberries in shape and size, but white baneberry fruits are unique! They grow and mature into a white colour (hence the white in the name!) but with a very spooky black dot on the end, making it look (who would've guessed!) like a doll's eye! I'll show you at the end, but it's very unnerving for a plant! They also grow quite quickly, flowering in spring but bearing fruit in summer! And before anyone tries, no you cannot eat them!!

Actaea pachypoda loves growing in humus-rich, moist, well-draining soil in a partial or full shade! If you decide to grow it yourself, the best thing you can do is cut it back in autumn, once the berries and foliage are past it's best, as this will encourage better growth next year! Plant it in september-november, in order for it to grow well and flower for april-june, for fruit in july-september! And the best time to divide it, as in to remove part of the plant with some roots attached to plant elsewhere, is march-april, when it wakes up well!

Doll's eyes is actually a really good plant for pollinators like bees as well as birds! The flowers are surprisingly nectar-rich and the birds can eat the berries and seeds! However, every other animal in the world apparently find the berries toxic! Dogs, cats, people, horses, livestock all suffer from an upset stomach and irritated skin when touching or ingesting the plant or it's fruits, so be sure to wear gloves when handling it!

Overall, Actaea pachypoda, or white baneberry or doll's eyes, is a fairly positive plant for "look but don't touch" mentality in your gardens! It's great for bees and birds, but keep everything other living thing away from it! If you liked learning about it, feel free to like, comment and reblog, and follow my page for more! Now, the moment you've been waiting for, here it is!

[learnplants]

Day 2 of spooky season! Today, we have Tacca chantrieri, also known as the bat flower or the devil flower! It's quite a rare and very stunning flower, since it's one of few black flowers!

The plant grows at most a metre tall, and the flower itself spreads out roughly 12 inches across! The bracts, which is the fancy name for a specialised leaf, typically for reproductive purposes, are shaped like big wings, like a bats! It also has bracteoles, small versions of bracts, that looks like whiskers!

The colours of the flower do vary, sometimes being dark brown, purple or even green, but all help to decieve pollinators! It's evolved to look like a carrion mimic, like the corpse flower, but Tacca chantrieri doesn't bother with the smell, just visuals! Flies fly into the flower, find out there's nothing deeper inside it, and struggle to crawl back out until the flower feels sufficiently pollinated!

The bat flower is a plant native to Asia, specifically south east Asia, spreading across Vietnam, south china, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and a few others! It likes a lot of heat and moisture as a result! Unfortunately, the territory it grows in, in the wild, is shrinking, mainly because of overexploitation, habitat destruction, and forest fragmentation, which is where chunks of forest are removed in irregular and unnatural patterns by humans!

Overall, Tacca chantrieri, or the bat flower or devil flower is a very unique plant, with distinctive colours and shape! If you liked learning about it, please like, comment, reblog and follow my page! Without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Guess who's back! That's right folks, it's your favourite educator for plants and fungus! I apologise for my long absence, I could make a dozen excuses but to keep it short and basic, ADHD!

In order to make it up to you lot, I have a devised a plan! I will post every day this month (October 2024) with a spooky plant, since it's Halloween at the end, aka spooky time! How does that sound?!

Today, we're starting off spooky month with Amorphophallus Titanum, or commonly called the Titan Arum, or the corpse flower! It's a marvel of a plant, growing in a strange way, at least through the eyes of a European! It's found in the wild only in the rainforests of Sumatra, typically on limestone hills, but is unfortunately hard to come by, due to deforestation and land degradation!

The flowers of Amorphophallus Titanum are very tiny, but grow together to form what's known as an inflorescence, which grows to an average height of 2 metres tall! The inflorescence is made up of an inner flower spike, called a Spadix, and an outer petal-like collar, called a Spathe! The Spathe is usually a cream-green colour on the outside, but a very deep burgundy on the inside, with a deeply grooved texture!

The flowers are located at the bottom of the Spadix and grow on the same inflorescence, making it monoecious! The flowers are pollinated by insects, but not how you'd normally think! It's not done by bees, or butterflies, or wasps! It's done by... Flies! And a species of beetle known as a carrion beetle! Now you may be wondering why flies and carrion beetles are interested in a flower, so I'll tell you! It's because, as the name suggests, the corpse flower smells like a corpse! Gross! It produces dimethyldisulfide and dimethyltrisulfide, both containing sulfur, and this both smelling foul!

When the insects do pollinate the female flowers, they'll develop bright red and orange fruits, similar to berries, but don't eat them! When this happens, the inflorescence actually does back, all the way to root, and a single leaf and stem pokes out! It starts growing like a tree, up and up, with white speckles, sprouting new leafs as it goes, which are incredibly large, and the plant photosynthesises! And all of this energy being produced, goes to making one of the largest tubers in the wild, weight at up to 25 pounds, or 11kg!

If you wanted to see one, and didn't want to hike and explore the Sumatran rainforest, you can check out Kew gardens, or the United states botanical garden! In fact, Kew gardens have a record about it! They recorded the first corpse flower flowering outside of Sumatra, back in 1889! This itself is quite amazing, but moreso because the Amorphophallus Titanum is very rare to actually flower! It can take years and when it does, it only lasts a couple of days, 3 at most! When it flowered for a second time, in 1926, it attracted crowds so large, the police had to be called for crowd control!

Additionally, the inflorescence produces it's own heat, making the plant even more believable to be a fresh corpse, as well as it's colours! Such a trickster! All in all, the heat and hills make the scent carry for up to half a mile away! Wouldn't want this in your neighbours garden! Or a garden across town! The scent however, is only emitted in a single evening!

As much as it smells awful and and attracts a lot of flies and carrion beetles, it is still very important to remember, all plants are precious, and need as much effort to keep alive as possible, even the corpse flower! Habitat destruction and degradation has caused the Amorphophallus Titanum to become classified as endangered by the IUCN (international union for conservation of nature), meaning it is at a very high risk of becoming extinct in the wild! Please do what you can to protect all plants and fungus and animals as possible!

Overall, the Amorphophallus Titanum, or corpse flower, makes for a great first entry to our spooky plant list this month! I hope you enjoyed reading about it, and if you did, like, comment, reblog this post and follow for more spooky plants this month! Without any further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today, we have another interesting tree! Welcome, Tsuga Heterophylla, or the western hemlock! It's an evergreen conifer tree, native to north west America, but commonly planted in the UK for it's timber! For a time, it was called Tsuga Albertiana, after queen Victoria's husband, Albert, but was changed after her death! The tree grows up to 45m in the UK, but grows a lot taller in its native habitat, as high as 80m! The bark is a dark brown shade, with ridges, but commonly attracts a lot of moss growth, and ends up looking green!

The leafs are long green needles that are flat, soft, and rounded, with a pair of white bands underneath!

The fruits are cones that are small and pendulous, usually with thin and flexible scales! The immature cones start off green, but turn brown when they mature, with thin papery scales!

It was first introduced to the UK in the 19th century, by a plant hunter called David Douglas, and is now one of the most common conifers in the UK! The tree prefers a moist climate, like that of the north west of north America, and has a fairly rapid growth in the UK! Due to the density of the crown, and how close these trees can live together, they case a very dark shadow underneath themselves, meaning no other plants can grow, meaning there's no wildlife attributes to Tsuga Heterophylla!

Overall, the western hemlock, or Tsuga Heterophylla, is a very interesting tree! If you liked learning about this tree, feel free to like and comment, and repost to share the knowledge! Follow for more!

Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Apologies for not posting yesterday, work was too much! Hopefully I can make up for it with the information on this tree! Today, we have Platanus X Hispanica, or commonly known as London Plane! It grows to be up to 35 metres tall, and is a deciduous tree, meaning the leafs drop off for the winter! It also has an incredible resistance to pollution, so it's commonly planted in urban areas! They can also live for several hundred years, and has an olive-green and grey bark that grows in plates, and when peeled, reveals a cream colour!

The leafs are actually quite similar to the sycamore, which leads to some confusion! But the London plane doesn't have the serated edges that sycamore leafs have! They grow thick and leathery leafs thay have 5 triangular lobes, that change to a rich orange-yellow in autumn and drop off soon after!

The flowers of the London plane are monoecious, meaning one tree grows both male and female flowers, but they grow on other stems! The flowers are ball shaped and usually bright red, making them very striking, and the openness of the flower makes it very easy to pollinate!

When the flowers are polinated by the wind, they develop into small spiky fruits, made up of a dense cluster of seeds with stiff hairs, allowing the wind to spread the seeds, after they start breaking up in the winter, allowing growth in the spring!

Platanus X Hispanica is found commonly in cities, especially in London, hence the name, because it can handle the high pollution and the compacted soil, whereas many other species will suffer! Because of it's city location, it has very little to do with the rest of nature, although the seeds may be eaten by more desperate grey squirrels! Also, since it's a Non-Native plant species, and a hybrid species (most likely a hybrid of the oriental plant and the American plane), there's no folklore or mythology involving the tree unfortunately!

There aren't many threats to the London plane, only the plane anthracnose, which causes dieback in leafs and new shoots, stunting growth!

Overall, Platanus X Hispanica, or the London plane, is a rather interesting tree, because of it's ability to handle the heavy pollution of London, and it's ability to break up compacted soil and survive in conditions many other trees simply wouldn't!

If you liked learning about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and reblog to share the knowledge! The more we all learn about our plants, the more we can help our environments! Also, feel free to follow, I post (mostly) everyday about something new!

Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today we have another fungus, and it's another really cool one! Today is Morchella Esculenta, or the common morel! This is a highly priced and sought after fungus, because it is edible! It has a strong nutty flavour, with a pleasant earthy smell, and grows in a wide variety of habitats, such as well-drained woodland!

The cap usually 3-8cm across, and 5-12cm tall, and usually it's globular, but can be found conical as well! It looks rather irregular, with a rough honeycomb structure, but damaged-looking!

The stipe, or stalk, is pale-cream or white, and measure between 3-12cm tall!

Morels are native to the UK, but rather difficult to find! Luckily, they can grow in groups, as well as individually! Unfortunately, they can't be grown commercially, meaning they have to be foraged, so they'll be expensive to buy! They love well-drained soil, so be sure to look in woodlands, copses, and hedgerows!

Morels are edible, but they must be cooked! If eaten raw, they are rather poisonous! Don't eat then raw! That being said, they are a culinary rarity, and are very recognisable! In the past, in eastern Europe, morels were considered to be the work of the devil! They also have some medicinal properties, such as anti-tumour and anti-viral effects, and fatigue resistance!

Overall, Morchella Esculenta, or the common morel, is a rather interesting fungus, with a very distinct look! If you liked learning about this fungus, feel free to like and comment, and reblog to share the information! Also, feel free to follow for more info in the future! Now, without further delay, here it is!

Remember, cook them before you eat them!

[learnplants]

Today, we have another fungus! But this one looks very unique! This is Crucibulum Leave, or commonly called the common bird's nest fungus! They cling to little branches and twigs, exactly like a birds nest, and actually look like a bird nest, complete with eggs!

The caps are rather small, growing no more than 10mm across, and start with a velvety cinnamon-yellow membrane over them, called a epiphragm! This eventually bursts, revealing the spore sacs inside, called periodoles, each of which is attached to the cap by a thin string called a funiculus!

The spore sacs use rain to release the spores! The raindrop causes the sacs to jump 4 feet into the air, breaking the string, and spraying spores out as it flies through the air!

Crucibulum Leave is found across the UK, typically on decaying wood, in any kind of woodland, particularly dark and damp ones! They're also found in parks and possibly even your garden, if you have wood chips anywhere, but they're so tiny, it's easy to miss them! Also, the fungus is slightly toxic to us, so don't go out and eat them, but other mammals do nibble on them!

Overall, Crucibulum Leave, or the common bird's nest fungus, is a very unique looking fungus, that loves to digest decaying wood, allowing the carbon cycle to continue! If you liked learning about this fungus, feel free to like and comment, and if you want more in the future, follow my page! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today, well he mixing things up a bit! We have Russula cyanoxantha, or commonly called the charcoal burner! This is an edible fungus, found in beech and oak woodland in the UK from July to November!

They vary in colour, which makes identifying them rather difficult, but it does have a distinctive crumbly texture, and in the UK, it doesn't have a ring! In fact, it's so crumbly, that's why the group is called the brittlegills!

The cap is about 5-15cm in diameter, starting out perfectly spherical when it's young, but matures into a convex shape with a slight central divot! They appear in a wide range of colours, such as reddish-purple, all the way to brown and yellow! The gills are densely packed, sometimes forked too! And the stipe, or the stalk, is usually cylindrical and between 5 to 10cm tall, and usually white but it can have a purple tinge to it!

The charcoal burner is used by chefs across the world, because the fungus retains their texture and they have a nutty taste! But be careful if you try and forage them yourself, in the UK alone, there are over 160 species of fungus with this name, and I imagine not all of them are great to eat!

Overall, Russula cyanoxantha, or the charcoal burner is a great fungus, popular with chefs, like the chanterelle, with a huge variety of colours! If you liked learning about this fungus, feel free to like and comment, and if you want to learn more about other plants and fungus in the future, feel free to follow! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

For today, we have another tree! What can I say, I just love trees! Today, it grows over 35 metres, lives over 700 years, and has orange-brown bark which later develops plates! It is Pinus Sylvestris, or scots pine! It's one of only three native pine trees in the UK!

The leafs are, rather uniquely, needles! They grow in pairs off of a short side shoot! They're blue-green in colour and are slightly twisted!

Scots pine is monoecious, meaning it produces male and female flowers on a single tree! The male flowers are shoots of yellow anthers, that look like strands of yellow-green coming out of the base of the shoots! The female flowers are red-purple in colour and rather small!

After being polinated by the wind, the female flowers turn into fruit, which for the Scots pine are cones, containing seeds! They start off green, but mature into a larger and brown cone!

Scots pine is the only truly native pine tree in the UK, the other 2 were introduced a very long time ago and have naturalised to the environment! They thrive in Heathlands across the country, but is found in abundance in Caledonian forest, up in the Scottish Highlands!

The Caledonian forest is actually a priority habitat in the UK, which means it's very heavily protected, because it is home to several endangered and extremely rare species, such as the creeping ladies tresses, and the Scottish crossbill! There are also rare mammals, such as the red squirrel, and the Scottish wildcat!

In modern times, the Scots pine is used for it's wood! It has the strongest softwood of all trees! This means it's used in a lot of construction and joinery! It's resin is also used to create turpentine, and the inner bark can be used to produce ropes!

Scots pine is under threat from a huge amount of issues! Red band needle blight, root and butt rot, needle cast disease, and pine stem rust! The pine tree lappet moth also causes defoliation of Scots pine!

Overall, Pinus Sylvestris, or the Scots pine, is an amazing tree, grown for its high strength wood! If you liked learning about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and repost to spread the information! If you want to learn more, check out my page for plants I've covered already, and follow me for more in the future! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today's plant is yet another tree, called Castanea Sativa, or commonly called the sweet chestnut! This tree is native to southern Europe, west Asia, and north Africa! It was first introduced to the UK by the Romans, who used to get the chestnuts and grind them, to make a flour or coarse meal! It grows to be about 35 metres tall, and can live for as long as 700 years! The bark is a grey-purple and is smooth, but develops fissures as it ages!

The leafs are oblong and toothed, typically forming into groups of 20 pairs, with rather prominent veins! The sweet chestnut is another monoecious plant, forming make and female flowers on one plant! It produces predominantly male flowers, that are long, yellow catkins high up, and some female flowers lower down, that look identical!

When the female flowers have been pollinated by insects, they'll develop into red-brown fruits, with a spiky green casing around it! It also takes a while for the tree to reach this stage of its life, requiring a solid 25 years of growth before it'll flower and fruit!

The Castanea Sativa is found all across Europe, and in the UK, it's found in the south of England more commonly, but is all over! The flowers provide valuable nectar for pollinators, and red squirrels eat the nuts, making it vital for the continuation of this endangered species!

Modern uses for sweet chestnut are for food, being great after being roasted and used to make stuffing, and for its wood! It's quite similar to oak, in terms of it's hardness and versatility, but it's lighter and easier to work with! It's used in a lot of furniture making and carpentry!

Sweet chestnut is at risk of fungal diseases, and recently in the UK, an outbreak of chestnut blight has struck, causing bark cankers, leading to dieback, and eventually death! Young trees are also at risk from squirrels!

Overall, Castanea Sativa, or sweet chestnut, is an amazing tree, providing food for a lot of nature, including the endangered red squirrels, and us! If you liked learning about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and repost it to spread the information! If you want to see more in the future, give me a follow and check out my page for plants I've already covered! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today's plant is a native of north America! It's known as an arborvitae in Latin, meaning tree of life, because the evergreen foliage of the tree doesn't have any obvious buds, and new growth can just *appear*! It is the one and only Thuja Plicata, or commonly called the western red cedar!

The western red cedar is a very tall tree, reaching as tall as 65 metres, and some living to be older than 1000 years old! Yes, you read that right, a whole millennia! It forms a vague pyramid shape, with very dense fern-like foliage and bark that's a dark reddish-brown!

The leafs are small, sprouting from the twigs off of branches, so only measure about 2 or 3mm long! They grow in opposite pairs and are a dark and glossy green on top, but have whitish markings underneath! They also smell like pineapple or pear drops when crushed!

The western red cedar grows flowers monoeciously, meaning it has male and female flowers! They both look like cones, but the males are tiny and hard to notice, whereas the female are slightly bigger, but still hard to see, and have a reddish-purple colour, and appear by the tips of branches!

When the female cones are pollinated by the wind, they'll develop into the trees fruit, which are small, brown cones, that are slender and oval-shaped, and contain the seeds, which are tiny and brown and have 2 wings attached, in order for the seeds to glide in the wind!

In the UK, the western red cedar is grown for its lumber, but is also planted in gardens as hedging! Also, the density of the foliage attracts lots of birds, as they can nest safely! Also, because the bark is fairly fissured, lots of insects like it too!

The Thuja Plicata is a very important tree in native American culture! Because it is a very strong tree, it was celebrated by native Americans, who also thought that if you were in the presence of the tree, you would gain some of its strength!

In the UK, you'll find the tree deliberately planted, usually not out in the wild, and is highly sought after because it is one of the strongest and most durable woods in the world! So it's used in construction a lot!

The western red cedar is susceptible to attacks from scale insects as well as conifer aphids, that suck the sap from the trees!

Overall the Thuja Plicata, or the western red cedar is a very important tree, due to it's strength and value to nature, as well as this mighty height and ancient lives! If you liked learning about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and reblog to spread the information! And if you would like to learn about other plants, check out my page and give me a follow for more in the future! So, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today's plant is an oldie! It was first introduced to the UK by the Romans, who loved the nuts of the tree! That's right, it's Juglans Regia, or commonly called, the walnut tree! They grow to be roughly 35 metres tall, and typically have a small trunk and a large crown if grown with enough space! The bark is smooth and olive-brown when developing, but when matured, it does what we do, and goes grey!

The leafs of Juglans Regia are shiny and feather-like (or if you want the fancy word, pinnate) and grows to be 5-9 cm long, in pairs, but with a third at the end of the stem, called a 'terminal' leaf!

Similar to birch trees, the walnut flowers are catkins! The males are droopy, being about 10cm long with a yellow-green colour, whereas the female flowers are smaller, and appear in groups of up to 5!

When the flowers have been pollinated, which is done by the wind in this instance, they transform, turning green and eventually into a big green lump of a fruit! And inside that big green fleshy lump of fruit, lies a withered brown walnut! Little fun fact, the scientific or Latin name for the English walnut, Juglans Regia, translates to 'royal nut of jupiter'!

The walnut is native to south east Europe, all the way over to south west china! It was first introduced by the Romans, who loved the nuts, and eventually naturalised, mainly because of the squirrels hoarding the nuts! It prefers well-draining soil that's alkaline, loamy, and fertile!

For nature, Juglans Regia is rather important, the leafs providing food for many species of caterpillar, for micro moths, and the nuts themselves are eaten by mammals, like the mouse and squirrel! And of course, us!

Primarily, walnut trees were grown for their nuts, but more recently, it's being used for it's timber, because it has a wavy and decorative grain! The leafs are used to treat a variety of conditions, like acne and ulcers, and are used in the tanning industry, and as dye, and the nuts halp with bad cholesterol! The shells of the nuts are also used in the treatment of blood poisoning! Loads of uses for this wonderful tree!

The English Walnut is susceptible to some diseases unfortunately! Walnut blight being an example, causes small black spots on new leafs, resulting in the dying back of new shoots and damage to the nuts! It can also cause the leafs to fall early, but tends to not have much of an effect on the tree, thankfully!

Overall, Juglans Regia, or the English walnut, is an amazing food tree, that provides for a whole host of creatures, and has some medicinal benefits as well! If you liked learning about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and repost to spread the information! As always, if you'd like to see more, check out my page and give me a follow for more in the future! Now, without any more delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today's plant bears one of my favourite fruits! It is Rubus Idaeus, or the common raspberry! It's a fruiting shrub that grows to about 2 and a half metres tall!

The leafs are divided into groups of 3-5 and are very coarsely toothed, with white hairs on the underside, whilst the top stays a fairly dark green! The stems are also prickly, in order to deter birds from landing in them!

Rubus Idaeus develops white flowers, each with 5 petals! When the flowers are pollinated by insects, they develop into raspberries! Something pretty neat about them, is that they're aggregate fruit, which means one flower has several ovaries in it, which means one raspberry is, due to technicality, several fruits in one cluster! How neat!

Raspberry shrubs grow to be 2.5 metres tall and spread out to be about a metre! It takes about 5 years to fully mature! It also prefers loam and sand soil, struggling to cope with clay-based soils, and preferring acid or neutral soils, struggling with alkaline! They're also quite hardy plants, living in temperature as cold as -20 Celsius!

Raspberries do have some struggles! They're susceptible to aphids, leafhoppers, gall mites, and raspberry beetles! They're also susceptible to diseases, such as grey molds and very rarely honey fungus! But most cultivars, developed from this parent plant, have decent disease resistance, and pests can be treated!

Overall, Rubus Idaeus, or the common or European raspberry is an amazing aggregate fruit, well deserving of it's international renown! If you liked learning a bit about this plant, feel free to like and comment, and repost to spread the information! If you'd like more in the future, give me a follow and if you want to learn about plants I've already talked about, check out my page! Now, without further delay, here it is!

[learnplants]

Today's plant is the one and only, Betula Pendula, or commonly called the sikver birch! This is an extremely common tree, found all over Europe and the rest of the world! It grows to be roughly 30 metres tall, and develops a characteristic light and airy canopy, as well as white bark that sheds in layers like paper!

The leafs are triangular, with a serrated edge that start light green and fade into yellow and brown in autumn, before dropping off in the winter!

The silver birch flowers with catkins, and is monoecious, menaing it produces male and female catkins on the same tree! The males are long, and yellow-brown and grow in clusters of 2 to 4, whereas the female catkins are smaller and green!

When they are successfully pollinated by the wind, the female catkins thicken and brown, before releasing loads of tiny brown seeds into the air, to be carried off by the wind in autumn!

Betula Pendula is a very hardy tree! It can survive the low temperatures in Lapland and the high temperatures in southern Spain! It also doesn't care about the soil type or the pH! It is commonly found in dry woodlands, heaths, and downs! The deep roots of the silver birch actually bring soil quality up, as it reaches nutrients that can't be reached by others, and releases it into the topsoil when the leafs drop! Such a good neighbour plant!

For nature, the silver birch is amazing! It can support over 300 different insect species! So supportive! And, because of it's light canopy, enoguht light reaches the bottom to support grasses and wildflowers, such as bluebells! It also provides nesting ground for woodpeckers!

In Celtic mythology, it's was thought that the birch tree was a purifier! And that it represented regrowth and renewal! Additionally, in the Scottish Highlands, folklore states that if you move an infertile highland cow on with a birch stick, it'll become fertile, and if you move a pregnant highland cow on, it'll birth a healthy calf!

In modern times, silver birch wood is used for furniture naming, since it's a rather durable and strong wood, and the bark is used in the leather tanning industry! It's not used much in Britain though, since it doesn't grow as large as it does in Europe!

Overall, Betula Pendula, or the silver birch is an amazing tree that's vital to the continuation of a massive variety of insects, and has a multitude of uses in modern times! If you liked learning about this particular plant, feel free to like and comment, and repost to let others learn too! Follow for more plants everyday, and check out my page for other plants already covered! Now, without further delay, here it is!