Oakey Bokeh in Westonbirt

As the weather was fine and warm, although rather overcast, I decided to spend a couple of hours at Westonbirt Arboretum today. We are members so the more we attend the better the value, and with the promise of colder weather coming soon, I thought I would check out how much of the autumnal colour was already present.

Actually, although there were obvious preparations for the massive crowds who go there to see the autumn display, the actual trees still seemed to have mostly green leaves. A few had lost most of their leaves, but others were indicating that the chlorophyll was about to retreat and to bring on the red, yellow and brown colours we all expect.

What seemed more apparent was the profusion of seeds and berries. Whilst I was trying to catch the only really vivid colours I saw today, of a Full Moon Maple, I heard the evocative sound of horse chestnuts falling through the branches and leaves of a massive and slightly unusual variety of chestnut. When I walked the few yards to check the ground beneath the canopy, I saw a profusion of enormous conkers, some still in their fleshy cases. I was taken back to my childhood memories of stalking my very own 'conker alley' on the nearby common land, looking for my annual collection, ready to do battle with Tim and Richard down the road. So today I picked a few up a few conkers to bring home, and when Helena saw them she commented on how big they were and showed me the ones she had found, which were less than half the size. I would definitely win against hers!

I also really liked the fruits of a Spindle tree which I had not noticed before, but they were very hard to photograph as they hung from branches that swayed in the breeze. But it was a massive Quercus Robur, a common oak, which most impressed me, not only with its enormously wide trunk and the great spread of its canopy, but also with the profusion of lovely acorns amongst its thick leaves. It is going to be a terrific year for mast, the name for the fruits of the forest from oak and beech trees. The term "mast" comes from the Old English word "mæst", meaning the nuts of forest trees that have accumulated on the ground, especially those used as food for fattening domestic pigs. This was a special right, called Pannage, allotted to certain commoners to allow their pigs and other animals to consume this occasional feast, as in some years there is hardly any of these 'fruits' to be had. The fattened pigs would then be at their best in time for their use as winter food for humans. I know that on minchinhampton Common the right to mast still exists, although there few trees left there now.

The conkers we have will now be used around the house, as they seem to be a way of preventing spiders spinning webs in the rooms. Helena told me about this a couple of years ago, and I must admit it did seem to inhibit cobwebs, which are rather prevalent in our neck of the woods.

See an image of Pannage here, called 'Harvesting acorn to feed swine'; a detail of a miniature from the Queen Mary Psalter (BL Royal 2 B VII). Held and digitised by the British Library. Date: 1310-1320


From Wiki:
Mast seeding or masting is a mass seeding phenomenon exhibited by some species of plants which can be defined as 'synchronous production of seed at long intervals by a population of plants'. Masting, in the strict sense of the term, occurs only in monocarpic (or semelparous) species, whose members reproduce only once during their lifetime, then die.

A mast year is a year in which much more mast than usual is produced. The term originally applied solely to trees, like oak trees, that produce fruit useful for feeding farm animals. This provides food for animals like rats and stoats, whose populations can explode during a mast year, having been reduced by a lack of food in previous non-mast years. In turn, this makes it more likely that birds will be targeted by the pests, or that rats will invade nearby fields in what is called a 'rat flood'.