grassland, which fitted that part of our lawn. What fascinating things can be found on a
scruffy old lawn, especially if it has never had any fertiliser or selective weedkiller.
The Club now has a sparkling new website, replacing the old and under the same address.
It is wonderful! I have a page on it, called 'Mary's natural history news'. If you put
Mary, or news, into the search thing you will soon find it. I hope people will look and
respond, to make this regular article more interesting and more varied.
Did you see in the news about the rediscovery of the Short-necked Oil Beetle in Britan?
It was last seen in Sussex in 1948. Then somebody found it in south Devon very recently.
Now you don't often find extinct animals reappearing all by themselves, as they must
have had some life in between. Plant seeds can last for many years without growing, and
soil being turned up can lead to a sudden reappearance. They grew some ancient emmer
wheat from tombs in Egypt that were 4,000 years old, though I daresay the germination
rate was pretty low. But beetles? I reckon that either the beetles were living quietly in
south Devon all those years, and nobody noticed them, or, some new ones arrived quite
recently, say from France perhaps. Or do they really have incredibly long-lived eggs? It
seems that one reason they are rare is that the larvae need to hitch a lift on the backs of
mining bees, and these beasts of burden are also rare. Now, getting closer to home, are
there any in Essex? Have you looked? Has anyone looked? After all, we get a number
of mining bees in Essex, so I am told, though I would not recognise one if it hit me in the
face. But lots of you people would!
Right at the end of March, botanising for the new season began, and I came across
Scentless Mayweed in several places, all in flower, on old plants from last year. They
had dead heads too, and woody stems. Clearly these were last year's plants still in
flower, and probably had been all through the winter! And trees that usually leaf in May
are doing so now, and several grasses (Black-grass, Meadow Foxtail, Smooth Meadow-
grass) that usually flower in May are out now too. In my garden it was 1 8°C. What will
summer be like?
The history of an Oak
David Bloomfield Hortons, Mascalls Lane, Brentwood, Essex CM14 5LJ
Just before Christmas I had an Oak tree blown from my wood onto my neighbour's
winter wheat. This tree was notable in having a full set of brown foliage and growing in
a five feet deep stream close to the water level, among the surface roots of a large Ash
coppice stool with several well grown trunks.
The tree fell diagonally across the stream, which presented a problem because I was not
able to get wheeled equipment on the soft wet soil which was growing wheat. I was not
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 53, May 2007