12
some of the pieces were about 18 inches long by 10 or 12
inches wide and the whole quantity of bark littering the
pavement was quite extraordinary. I knew it is a feature
of plane trees to shed their bark, giving the characteristic
mottled appearance, but the extent to which this had happened
led me to suspect disease or possibly the attentions of grey
squirrels. Hurrying on my way the observations were
momentarily forgotten.
A short time later, there appeared in the Guardian newspaper
a "Country Diary" article which mentioned the phenonemon,
commenting that this dramatic discarding of bark was currently
widespread so led me to observe the London Plane more closely.
Two of our three trees bore completely bare branches by this
time with many patches on the tree trunks as well. In
central London particularly along the Embankment the same
thing can be observed and during the winter months the trees
made a colourful sight with their limbs pointing like
yellow ochre painted fingers to the sky. In areas such as
Newham where roadside trees are annually chopped of all
potential branches and twigs leaving only trunks with ugly
knobbly tops, this shedding of bark is still apparent in
some cases almost the whole of the tree is bare; generally
the loss is largely from the upper branches of unpruned
trees.
My travels during the winter covered an area roughly bounded
by Ely in the north, Reading in the west, southwards to
Brighton and eastwards to Southend, and the phenonenon of