been broken off or uprooted. And thirdly, development in the absence of tree preservation
orders. The first and the last are fatal consequences, snapping off or uprooting of the root
disc are not fatal and can be positively beneficial - providing nobody chain saws the remaining
stump down to the ground and destroys the adventitious buds that lurk or are induced in the
lower stump. Just like a willow, a fallen/snapped-off trunk will produce 'sets' in abundance,
sapling like vertical shoots that can either be cut off and used to clone the tree nearby, or left
to grow into new trees.
At World's End Roydon, a tree that fell around 1985 has produced dozens of saplings
from its now completely rotted fallen trunk. In Hospital Wood, by the old Claybury
mental hospital (Redbridge), a tree uprooted in about 1971, that still has its root disc in
contact with a small stream, had four shoots in 1973 that were barely an inch in diameter,
that have now grown into four magnificent 60ft high 1ft diameter trees, - nicely equally
spaced along the old trunk. This will eventual ly rot and leave the four trees in a neat line.
Similarly, at the Chase, Dagenham, one of the female trees has regrown from its old
snapped off trunk, as has one at Little Waltham. If you look around in the undergrowth
you will in both cases find the old rotting trunk.
Losses however are mounting up. Tire magnificent male at Gaston Green, Great Hallingbury
had 2/3 of its trunk snapped off in the early spring gales. The tree at Aveley has been cut off
and its sapling progeny as well as its regrowing stump are in the line of a new road. One of
the trees at the Rose Pub, Shenfield has gone, the large tree in the City of London cemetery
has been cut down - I could go on but I won't depress you. Please report any new trees you
find, there must be at least another hundred out there that we have not discovered.
Water Poplar Hybrid Black Poplar
If it's not a Lombardy Poplar (just a fastigiate Water Poplar mutant), and it has a spiral
gall on its leaf stalk it will be a genuine Water Poplar (see figure) [That little critter of an
aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae will not touch any of those yanks! even if they smell
22
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 42, September 2003