2010 & 11... Almost caught up!

As mentioned at the end of the last post we started off the willow plantation.
I purchased and collected the willows from Yorkshire Willow...
they came as 10" cuttings... well, lengths...
of one year old stem with about six to ten buds.

The willow sticks in their nursery bed...
some were too young to leave home!!

The idea is to plant each length of willow stem where it is going to finally be...
in our meadow?
You are joking!!...
it was difficult enough to find them the way I planted these ones.

The willows were of seventeen different varieties in bundles of ten.
One hundred and seventy twigs...
what we bought are listed below [the ones introduced as 20cm cuttings]...
and these should be buried with around two inches/two buds above ground.
So I decided to create two nursery areas...
the one pictured above and another one in a damp spot out in the meadow.
I have altered the table below to show the survivors... some have thrived....eg: Bay Willow and Cohu Blue.... others I have struggled with... and some, like the Sekka pictured below... have succumbed because they are not suited to this environment.

On each row I used a Crack Willow stick to hold the label on the left in the photo above...
this year I will plant out the twenty-odd young Crack willow volunteers that were the result...
they will form a coppice area towards the riverbank.

These are the Sekka catkins...
grey against the red bark.
And, in 2017 the last Sekka had vanished...

The majority of the bought 'twigs' took hold in the pictured nursery area...
but the success rate was poor in the meadow.
That wasn't surprising...
I purchased them in late March and planted them in early April...
not really the right time...
and as we were still in the UK for much of 2010...
they weren't able to be regularly watered either.

These are the wonderful Cohu Blue catkins...
they start steel blue-grey, then "heat-up" and, finally...
catch fire.

These young trees were then planted out in blocks...
or patches where there were only two or three survivors...
last year...
the year of the very hot, dry summer....
again not at all good for young trees that haven't got roots down deep.
If you look at the tree list page, you will see a column marked survivors 2012...
I will be going round next week trimming the survivors down to two or three buds on each shoot...
[and planting the cuttings deep, in situ, to extend the blocks/patches].


Tree Table of those species on site

English Name	Species	French name [if any]	Survivors [2011] [2017]	Uses	Comments
Crack Willow	Salix fragilis	Saule fragile	N/A	Crop for biomass	On site
White Welsh	Salix fragilis decipiens		1 ex 10 2017 none!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
White Willow	Salix alba	Saule blanc	(3) ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Scarlet Willow	Salix alba 'Chermesina'		10... 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from cuttings
Flanders Red	Salix alba fragilis		3 ex 10 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Golden Willow	Salix alba vitellina	Osier doré	5 ex 10 2017 one!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Dog Willow or Sage-leaf Willow	Salix candida		6 ex 10 2017... two left!		Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Tora	Salix viminalis tora		5 ex 10 2017.... None left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Continental Purple	Salix daphniodes	Saule faux-daphné	10 ex 10 2017.... eight left... not happy!!	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Willow	Salix nigricians		2 ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Bay Willow	Salix pentandra	Saule a cinq étamines	9 ex 10 2017.... No change!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Purple Osier	Salix purpurea	Osier rouge	5 ex 10 2017.... two left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Cohu Blue	Salix purpurea		8 ex 10 2017.... No change!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Green Dicks	Salix purpurea		3 ex 10 2017.... two left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Sekka	Salix sachalinensis		9 ex 10 2017.... None left!	Coppice for rods and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Black Maul	Salix triandra		11 ex 20 2017.... None left!	Coppice for colour	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Common Osier	Salix viminalis		5 ex 10 2017....one left!	Coppice for rods, colour and biomass	Introduced from 20cm cuttings
Grey Willow	Salix cinerea	Saule cendré	1 2017.... No change!		On site
Eared Sallow	Salix aurita	Saule à oreillettes	1 2017.... No change!		Self seeded at allotment
Pussy or Goat Willow	Salix caprea	Saule marsault	1 2017.... three more self-seeded!	Plant more as early bee fodder	Self-seeded - On site by bridge

Moth Mondays - The Black Arches

MOTH MONDAYS

The Black Arches

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Lepidoptera

Superfamily: Noctuoidea

Family: Erebidae
Genus:     Lymantria
Species:     L. monacha
Binomial name
Lymantria monacha

This moth... a male of the  The Black Arches or Nun moth (Lymantria monacha) la Nonne...
I have only seen this once... the males are attracted to light...and this came to the door!
The flight period is July and August and these pictures were taken 12th July 2011.

The fact that it is male can be seen by the feathery antennae... in fact this moth is renown for the size of these.

It is a very variable moth... from paler than this to a black, melanistic form...
take a look at the German site for some fourteen examples....
but this one is the one usually illustrated in guides...
the hindwings are grey/grey brown with a more or less white wavy pattern on the outer edge....
The abdomen has more... or less... of the black and pink/orange stripes shown here.

The second of only two shots...
but, fortunately shows the stripey abdomen.
The white dots on these pictures are in fact... wing scales!

The caterpillar is hairy and has a dark, geometrically patterned back... with a diamond pattern in the centre...
it feeds on pine and spruce, where it can reach pest proportions... but secondary food plants are oak, beech, lime and willow...

The pupa is coarsely hairy... and looks as if it pupated inside the caterpillar's skin.


Next Monday... another surprise.... I haven't decided yet! Too much choice...

NB: The information from the other sources is now placed at the bottom of the post.

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Sources

Other than Wikipedia.... and personal observations!
Moths and Butterflies of Europe and North Africa [ also known as Leps.it]
A superbly illustrated site.... marvellous on the Micromoths...
but difficult to use on a tablet/iPad.... an awful lot of scrolling needed.

Lepidoptera.eu   An excellent resource... with distribution maps

UK Moths This is quite a simple site... but nicely put together.

The German site Lepiforum.de - For really good samples of photos...
including museum specimens: to use....
Enter the Latin name and then select the Latin name from the list of pages found.
There is probably a lot more on this site... but I don't read [or speak] German!!

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From the Wiki:

The Black Arches or Nun moth (Lymantria monacha) la Nonne is a small Palaearctic moth. It is considered a forest pest.

Description
The moths of Lymantria monacha have a wingspan of 40 to 50 mm. They have white forewings with black connected wavy arches which gives the moth its name. The light brown hindwings have white fringes having black spots. They also have a characteristic biscuit-coloured abdomen with a black band. Females are larger and have elongated wings.

The eggs are oval, light brown or light red. Larvae are whitish grey to blackish, with grey hairs, red and blue warts, and a dark longitudinal dorsal line which is interrupted or broadened into spots in places. Pupa is golden glossy red-brown or dark brown, with reddish hairs dorsally and rather long anal point.

Technical description and variation
White forewing with black basal spots and four sharply angulate black transverse lines, the second of which is the broadest; hindwing greyish white and grey. Abdomen light rosepink. The species varies strongly and has received the following aberrational names,
nigra : The two central bands are confluent at the costal and posterior margins, forming black spots, or the whole median area is dark, the red of the abdomen usually weaker,
eremita : Forewing and abdomen smoke-brown or blackish grey, the former with black markings,
atra : Forewing uniformly black, without markings, hindwing greyish brown, abdomen black,
lutea : is a light form in which the central bands are interrupted; the red colour of the abdomen is equally deep almost to the thorax,
flavoabdominalis : has the abdomen yellow instead of red;
subfusca : female is distinguished by everything which is black in true monacha being yellowish brown, and the abdomen being also yellowish brown instead of red;
obsoleta : the dark transverse bands in the median area of the forewing are absent, while they remain in the basal and outer-marginal areas.
All these names were given to European specimens.

Range
This moth can be found in most of Europe including British Isles and in temperate regions of the Palearctic East to Japan.

Life cycle
The larvae hibernate when young, remain together in batches and are full grown in June.

Food plants and pest significance
The larvae feed preferentially on spruce (Picea abies) and pine (Pinus sylvestris). They also feed on silver fir (Abies alba), European larch (Larix decidua), aspen (Populus tremula), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), European beech (Fagus sylvatica), pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), apple (Malus domestica), sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) and bogberry (Vaccinium uliginosum). In spring the larvae consume the first buds, then later the needles. A single caterpillar eats about 200 pine, or 1000 spruce needles and twice as many are damaged by biting off. Spruces die at 70 percent needle loss and pine at 90 percent. There is also a danger also increased of secondary infections by longhorn beetles, bark beetles, fungi or other pathogens. Therefore, outbreaks can cause major damage in forestry.

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From UK Moths

Black Arches Lymantria monacha
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Wingspan 30-50 mm.

This attractive black and white species often shows traces of bright pink on the body, especially the abdomen, which however is normally concealed when at rest.

The males, which can be attracted to light, are smaller than the females, but have very large, feathery antennae.

Distributed mainly throughout the southern half of Britain, chiefly in woodland habitats, the adults fly in July and August.

The larvae feed in the spring, usually on oak (Quercus), but sometimes on coniferous trees.

Seeing a man about a trogne

On Monday night we went over to La Rabiniere at Betz-le-Chateau to a book talk organised by the “Champs des Livres” association. Mainly because I am fascinated by trees...

The author was a man passionate about “Les trognes” which is the main title of his book.

That passionate man, Dominique Mansion, founded and runs the Maison Botanique at Boursay in Loir et Cher.




He spoke of the history of the trogne, the reasons, the wildlife… he spoke quietly, intensely and with burst of loud emphasis. He was utterly captivating… so much so that I would have bought the book afterwards… if I hadn’t already bought a copy as we went in!!
His illustrations are marvelous… both detailed where needed and beautifully freely drawn where the impression is what counts.


The trogne goes back to prehistory… but for more of that follow this link to Art en Saule our website about the "Pre de la Forge" as well as discovering the reason behind his continued fascination with "Les Trognes"

I pollarded our old willows because I love trees and knew that they were old and needed a haircut… I was also aware of the wildlife that a pollarded tree supports… but my knowledge pales beside Dominique’s!