Beech leaves

The large Beech trees in the village have lost all their leaves now.

However Beech hedges have retained all of theirs. And this morning I noticed that Beech saplings up to about 10 feet tall have also retained leaves as shown in this blip.

Both the hedges and the saplings would be susceptible to having delicate new shoots, produced between 1 and 3 metres from the ground, nibbled off by deer in the early Spring. The presence of the old leaves acts as a deterrent to this. For the same reason the lower leaves of Holly have spines whilst the upper leaves do not.