daltontrees

I love the Botanics, could easily spend a week there. But if you really want to do it properly, you could spenda week doing the entire Botanics. Some of the sites are more suitable than others for some tree types, for example Benmore for conifers. So you could start in Edinburgh, go to Dawyck, then Logan, then Benmore then back to Edinburgh. It's the sort of saddo self-indulgent holiday I would do if I didn't have a family who sigh every time I wander off to look at a tree in a park.

Every day's a school day, and I dread the day that isn't. Can you imagine going to bed without having realised, learnt or worked something out that day? I was up at 5am! Learning to play Jerusalem Ridge on the mandolin, but that kind of counts as studying. Anyway, when I moved from surveying to trees and had to study formally again it was hard, very hard. I don't think I could go through what you're doing. Not at my age.... If I go to see Herr Mattheck it will be for entertainment value, won't take a single note.

If you ever have to work in one, you'll never forget it. Standard quick check for me between Norway ad Sitka Spruce is to cup the end of a branch in the hand and start to squeeze slowly. If it's not unbearable, it's not Sitka. Norway can be a bit sore but it's a poofter compared to Sitka.

Don't use ordinary spikes on a monkey puzzle. They will bleed and bleed and bleed, leaving white resin running down the stem and solidifying there for years. Please don't do it. Use a ladder. The vascular cambium in mature mionkey puzzles is a good inch or more below te surface. The cork cambium is right on the surface and very easy to damage.

There's soooo many pines, but in scotland probably 80% will be sylvestris, the rest will be nigra, contorta and just the occasional other. I found a parviflora at Smeaton, took me forever to pin it down. Last week came across 3 heldrichii, took me 15 minutes to get comfortable with the indentification. A few pines have needles in groups of 3 or 5. They're easy because that rapidly narrows it down. For 3 think perhaps rigida, for 5 think wallichiana or strobus. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think the 3 and 5 needled pines have 2 vascular bundles per needle, which if you've got a really good hand lens is a nice identifying feature. I think I might have put a thin section photo of a single vascular bundle needle in the 'trees under the microscope' thread her on Arbtalk. Next time I spot a wallichiana I'l nick a few needles and see if I can section them.

h to be a student... not!

It looks very much like Pinus sylvestris to me. The orange bark is a good indicator and could only realy be P. sylvestris or P. parvifolia. The latter has needles that are markedly longer. What is it that's making you think it might not be P. sylvestris?

The bit that says Spiky: Very is a pretty good default for Picea sitchensis

Tried to fill the survey in but some of the questions were unanswerable so I baled out. Sort it out and I'll have another go.

I think we're getting mixed up in what's meant by reference. If you want to know what the BS says about something for a one-off reason, go tot eh library. Look at the screen. Write it down if you want. That is what libraries are for, reference. No breach of copyright. But if you copy it and take it home, then that's breach of copyright. I use the Glasgow library now and again. I can look at screeds of stuff, pick out and note down the one or two sentences that I need and go home. I don't need to buy a whole document for 2 sentences. If there's an illustration I need the library will copy it for me. I don't eed or want whole documents cluttering my shelves and my hard drive unless I am gouing to be using them frequently. And if I am using them frequently they will be earning me money so I don't mind buying them. Didn't one of the consultancies down south produce a free or much cheaper abridged version of te BS? Or am I imagining that? BY the way, can anyone think of a better way for BS to finance its functions? I have long wondered about this but can't think of a solution.

It has now been withdrawn.

The business section of public libraries may have the fcility to print off the odd page here nad there. For example, Glasgow City has a free-to-view account for the British Standards and will allow a small % of any document to be printed off (10p a copy) there. So you could legitimately nab the categories table, for example.

Roll it up and pop an elastic band round it.

It's very strictly copyright and I hope for your sake an the sake of anyone that is going to give you a pdf copy they do so in private.

I prefer the term 'prematurely cynical'.

Yeah, so much for NJUG!

Beech, about 4 tonnes, must have been about 24m tall before being dismantled on the ground. I think the root spread under the road must have been pretty limited by the tarmac, but by the time the ducting operations severed the only roots, there was zero tensile support on that side, which was the windward side. Fortunately it landed in a field.

Pretty much bang-on. Ducting that severed the roots has been pulled out of the ground. You can see the groove in the rootplate where the duct had been. The forlorn cone is quite comical. Here's another picture.

Saw this recently on the edge of a 60mph public road, as the caption says it tells a story. I have the benefit of seeing it in 3 dimensions and a good close-up look and poke, but anyone want to speculate just for interest?

Nice one. Can't help adding Prunella scales, an English actress best known for her role as Basil Fawlty's wife Sybil in the British comedy Fawlty Towers.

|For what it's worth (not very much, probably) I thought is was an arrested Phellinus pomaceus.

The thing I am struggling with is that they are supposed to be the same species. Are you sure? The central ones looks like they have resin blisters, suggesting Abies. But overall the way the foliage is hanging on the few lower branches that are in-shot screams Picea abies (Norway Spruce).

I think Aesculus carnea is the hybrid between A. hippocastanum and A.pavia but A. indica is a species in its own right which most often has white flowers. A. x carnea rarely ends up well. I would agree with the comments about is susceptibility to deformation, canker and decay. I recently put in a Conservation Area notice for one to be removed, the Tree Officer stated that there were so many things wrong with it that he couldn't begin to describe them. The contractor left the butt 0.5m high because he didn't know what to do with the mass of burrs, epicormics, twisted unions and dysfunctional mush at the base. Not a great hybrid except, in my experience, wghen relatively young and vigorous. The main good point is that it flowers attractively while quite smalland young. Also seems up here to be relatively susceptible to Guignardia aesculi.

Aesculus x carnea was my first thought.

That's right, it isn't. And in some areas the LPA is not the Council. Housing should have notified Planning internally. And in theory waited 6 weeks. The key is this. Conservation of trees is a planning matter, if a planning dept authorises or sanctions removal, the legislation clearly intends to avoid the farce of it notifying itself. But if another operational dept does it without any planning context, it is as much a breach of conservation as if you or I did it. No excuse.