10th April 2009 (Friday)
It'd been a couple of weeks since my last visit, so I reckoned it was about time I headed back to the nature reserve at Frenchay Hospital, north Bristol, in particular to see how the
Snake's-head Fritillaries (
Fritillaria meleagris were getting on!
As you can see from the picture there were plenty in flower; mostly the standard checkered variety, but a few white ones like these too. Most of the other spring flowers that'd graced this site, though, were virtually over - just a few
Balkan Anemones (
Anemone blanda) hanging on.
A look around the rest of the reserve area saw me strike lucky with a pair of new conifers for the list;
Western Red Cedar (
Thuja plicata) &
Deodar (
Cedrus deodara), which I'm sure were once planted many years ago as part of the old estate here, but are now thoroughly integrated into the native landscape. There were also a few larches
Larix sp. which I've so far been unable to identify; I took these photos of the cones & young leaves, hopefully someone will be able to offer some advice
Later in the morning I headed north into Gloucestershire, and Frampton-on-Severn (just along the coast from the Slimbridge WWT reserve); there's an old wood here which also seems to have been part of an estate and, as a result, contains quite a few interesting naturalised relic trees. The
Black Walnuts (
Juglans nigra) weren't yet in leaf, but several
Weeping Crack-willows (
Salix x pendulina) were looking quite green around the boating lakes, another new plant for the photo list. In the village, too, was a fine patch of
Blue Anemones,
Anemone apennina, plus the usual Cuckoo-flower, etc.
By far the day's most unusual find, though, was in an old quarry, now used as a rubbish dump and motorbike obstacle course by the looks of it, on the edge of the wood. In amongst heaps of dumped soil, in a location it looked almost impossible to plant anything... two trees, roughly 20 feet tall, of
Tasmanian Snow Gum,
Eucalyptus coccifera 
Where the heck did they come from!!??
Tasmanian Snow Gum, Eucalyptus coccifera