please empty your brain below
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The forestry commission forest explorer app has an excellent tree identifier
Fern plodder | 25.05.15 - 8:09 a.m. | #
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I went looking for the app but it doesn't come up under Google Play Store ... must only be an Apple thing
Caroline | 25.05.15 - 8:34 a.m. | #
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Ah! Bromley! A borough with thousands of trees but no TFL . Obviously it doesn't exist..........
Jo W | 25.05.15 - 8:39 a.m. | #
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@Caroline Yes, the app is iPhone-only, so that immediately excludes us mere plebs.
Iain | 25.05.15 - 9:22 a.m. | #
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Considering the strike rate on this app, I wouldn't bother. Sounds like they took their info from old out of date websites and clobbered it together.
Thank you, dg, for the heads up on London Tree Week. I think I'll try the City of London's trail.
HoosierSands | Homepage | 25.05.15 - 9:42 a.m. | #
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Forestry Commission app identifies very small number of trees (and does other things, except there is rarely internet access in the middle of a forest). I got Tree Routes two months ago when I was doing a course on London's trees at City Lit (Letta Jones, highly recommended), since which I realize I know nothing. Very many London trees are various hybrids/cultivars. Tudge, The Secret Life of Trees, says maybe 39 native to Britain, 60,000 species in the world, plus hybrids. Just reading about the numbers of chromosomes is exhausting.
Tree Routes gets its information from one of the tree organizations, so the developer is not guilty, but the information is weird. I sought out the 'Upminster Oak', which is certainly not known here in Upminster, nor even in Hornchurch, where it actually stands in the churchyard of St. Andrew's (Upminster Bridge is the nearest tube stop, I suppose). It was identifiable but not overwhelming. But the app has helped when I happened to be in Marylebone or South Woodford.
Margaret | Homepage | 25.05.15 - 9:47 a.m. | #
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I love that eucalyptus (Gum Tree) is in the non-conformist cemetery. How appropriate. I'm stunned that you could not spot one though!
Mind you, your trek reminds me of a bush walk I did once, where the book clearly said, "turn left at the snow gum sapling" ... for the life of us we could not find a snow-gum sapling on the path (although we knew what one looked like). It was after 15 minutes of looking and backtracking and wondering if we'd got the map / previous instruction right that my fellow walking companion said "maybe the book is out of date - when was it published"? Having checked the date (oops), we went back to the whacking great Snow Gum tree and turned left...
Antipodean | 25.05.15 - 10:13 a.m. | #
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Nice to see the reminder of the name Will Cohu: I had a Scotty dog at the time he was writing about his, both in his Urban Dog column in the Telegraph, and later the book.
As regards Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, they have regular guided walks and events; they also hosted last year's Shuffle Festival.
RogerW | 25.05.15 - 10:13 a.m. | #
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The London Plane tree - one of the only species on this planet where not a single one has died of old age.
Horrible things.
the orange one | 25.05.15 - 10:25 a.m. | #
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Ooh, I've got some trees in my and other people's back gardens. In honour of London Tree Week I shall sit here on bank holiday and look at them. That one's green. That one's purple. There's a magpie in that one. Have I turned into "Look Around You"?
Kirk | 25.05.15 - 10:39 a.m. | #
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A treemendous post! I wouldn't have realised it was London tree week if it wasn't for DG. I think I will leave the app but will definitely pay more attention to the trees.
Hikki | 25.05.15 - 10:52 a.m. | #
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Unfortunately Stepney Green Wild Black Poplar shares the fate of too many urban trees - pruned back to mere stumps. It's a wonder they keep producing leaves every year. 'They' tend to do that to city trees around here too. Shame!
Very impressed with the number of trees appearing on the Google map/photo site.
Bronchitikat | Homepage | 25.05.15 - 11:01 a.m. | #
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No Elms in Elm Park then.
Running Correspondent | 25.05.15 - 11:17 a.m. | #
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Wouldn't a nice printed booklet with pictures been a lot better and more usable than some electronic thing?
popartist | 25.05.15 - 11:59 a.m. | #
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@popartist: the great thing about the Tree Routes app is that you have it with you on your smartphone wherever you happen to be in London. As diamond geezer suggests, it needs an upgrade. But without it, I would never have heard of the Barking arboretum (a contradiction in terms, surely).
Margaret | Homepage | 25.05.15 - 12:22 p.m. | #
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Another great post, encouraging us to get out more!
I had a whimsical picture of the Mayor controlling trees, a bit like King Knut and the waves. The GLA website did however lead to The Mayor's Street Tree Initiative Map which shows tree canopy cover, and air quality.
Bob Lindsay-Smith | 25.05.15 - 12:56 p.m. | #
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I see that the Swamp Cypress is pictured on the londontrees website www.londontrees.co.uk/swamp-cypress.html which describes it as being in Aldermanbury Square. However, Google Street View seems to show that same tree as being in Aldermanbury. This view shows four trees and I think it must be the second from the left. So maybe it hasn't been chopped down, just misplaced!
michaelH | 25.05.15 - 1:35 p.m. | #
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Great scope for creating tree spotting routes. There was an arboreal bike ride in Tower Hamlets for last year's National Tree Week, lots of interesting finds.
e.g. there's also a eucalyptus in Meath Gardens with Aboriginal cricketing history behind it
http://towerhamletswheelers.org.uk/rides/2014-11-30/arboreal-ride
O | 25.05.15 - 1:56 p.m. | #
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Being an app-less person, I recently re-bought a copy of the wonderful Ladybird Book of Trees that I'd love as a kid!
Now trying to commit it to memory!
Cornish Cockney | 25.05.15 - 2:37 p.m. | #
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@ the orange
...perhaps it not trees that are the "problem" but "us"? Too many people living in too small a space, with resulting dirt and poor air quality. The "London plane" may not be the best of trees...but trees we need, they don't need us.
E | 25.05.15 - 4:34 p.m. | #
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My favourite tree(watched every time I passed it)was suddenly chopped down. Reason?? God knows. It was a very healthy mature specimen with a natural canopy (not lopped). Almost cried. How dare they (who...no one knows). My second favourite tree (it has a number pinned to it so 'someone' is claiming it, is in a very bad way just lately. Why won't the 'someone' do something? (to help it - not chop it down, that is).
B | 25.05.15 - 5:43 p.m. | #
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Hmmm. Speaking of 'disappointments' one of my biggest came just earlier this year, when I made a return visit to a former workplace.
There was a lovely row of trees along Stonecutter Street, between Shoe Lane and Farringdon Street*. Every summer there would be an emergence of the moths whose larvae fed on the leaves.
Not any more. All cut down to stumps, presumably as part of the redevelopment of the Plumtree Court and former BT site :(
*You can still see them on GoogleMaps... but that's the only place you can.
RogerW | 25.05.15 - 7:39 p.m. | #
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Some of my favourite plane trees are in Berkeley Square. I'm no tree hugger, but I was saddened to see a magnificent limb from one of these majestic trees removed a good few years ago. It's horizontal shape almost seemed to defy gravity, and without it the tree now seems half the tree it was.
SJM | 25.05.15 - 10:31 p.m. | #
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From my perspective here in Ohio, London Plane Trees look to be largely the same as American Sycamores. Apparently, they're in the the same genus. In my visits to London, I remember plenty of trees which I took to be Sycamores.
Mark Geary | 26.05.15 - 2:09 a.m. | #
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Hi Diamond Geezer
Thank you for your comments on the app. I work at the Greater London Authority and will take your comments and suggestions to the team who work on trees. We know the app is not perfect and we intend to improve it so hopefully with your suggestions we can make it better!
I’ll also pass on your readers comments.
Best wishes
Lisa Pook | Homepage | 26.05.15 - 9:02 a.m. | #
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Current favourite London tree is the Empress tree (aka the purple foxglove tree) on the corner of Union Street and Great Guildford Street in Southwark. Lovely flowers, just finished blooming.
s | 26.05.15 - 10:42 a.m. | #
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@Mark Geary: the American plane is sometimes called sycamore in the USA. The thing about the London plane is that it is a hybrid between oriental plane and the American plane, which is particularly good at handling pollution. It only hybridized because the two came together in Europe, possibly Spain.
Margaret | Homepage | 26.05.15 - 11:18 a.m. | #
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