By: Blonde Two
Trees – even if they don’t have the word “Christmas” in front of them, are pretty cool. It would be interesting (or maybe frustrating) to count how many trees there are on Dartmoor. Some are native (take a look at Wistman’s Wood) and some are visitors (Fernworthy is my favourite of these).
Sometimes, the visitors escape from their bounds and become escapees (like the Dartmoor Christmas Tree). Escapees (like the Dartmoor Christmas Tree) appear in the most odd of places and are sometimes tracked down and removed. This little beauty is near to Birch Tor.
There are few things more rewarding than wandering through a piece of deciduous woodland on an early spring day. Yesterday I did just this (I was on Dartmoor with our illustrator doing a bit of research our next Blonde book). I found two trees that particularly pleased me.
The first (we struggled to work out what it was) was furry. It was so covered with moss that it was impossible not to reach out and stroke it. I have discovered in life that a stroke often leads to a cuddle and so it was with this tree. Moss is usually wet and drippy, this tree-moss was dry as a bone and very, very snuggly!
The second tree is a beech that I must have seen hundreds of times. It lives in the car park at Postbridge and is notable for its cleft nature. We spent some time discussing possible reasons for this twin formation, suggestions included; a lightning strike, two young trees very close together, one tree with two leaders or ‘sesame’ twins.
You can guess, can’t you, that it was the Blonde who suggested ‘sesame’ twins. I was having a word-loss moment but it seemed kind of apt!
The big one in the car park looks as though it might have ancient status – I wonder if it is on the Ancient Tree website. Sometimes a traumatic splitting or breaking saves the life of a really old tree and gives it new opportunities of growth. I have sometimes given trees a hug to apologise for damage caused by my species.
It doesn’t look like it has but it has a very near neighbour that isn’t. What a lovely website. I will have to go tree-hunting now, there are several in the National Park 🙂