Trip Report Pine forest Permission Camp

[Pattree]

We did much the same at Wisley long long ago. In the NDH plant ident you could see each of us standing in front of a twig of cedar waving our arms up and down as we sorted through the genera.

Atlantica ascends;
Lebarnii level;
Deodar descends.

I also nearly got 100% but of all things, just couldn’t place Douglas cones. I didn’t get caught out with the alder cones!!!! Sneaky barlambs.

 

[Falstaff]

Part of my NCH (Arb) was a weekly tree and shrub ident test. We’d get told to learn around 30or 40 a week and get tested on 20 sprigs or small branches of a selection of them. Conifers are about the hardest, I got 99.5%, losing 0.5% for misspelling Pseudotsuga menziesii. I forgot the t.

There's no chance for me then,.......back to the cave, Ugh, Tree! Rock! Errr...

 

[MrEd]

There is also some Norwegian spruce there, I will take a photo when I am there next

 

[Pattree]

You y don’t need that sort of brain clog for bushcraft unless you want To for some other reason.
All you need to know is what works for you.
I have forgotten the names of very nearly every decorative species of shrub and herbaceous plant that I learned and there’s were thousands of them.

 

[Pattree]

Norway Spruce = Christmas tree until the Nordman fir arrived.

 

[Nice65]

We did much the same at Wisley long long ago. In the NDH plant ident you could see each of us standing in front of a twig of cedar waving our arms up and down as we sorted through the genera.

Atlantica ascends;
Lebarnii level;
Deodar descends.

I also nearly got 100% but of all things, just couldn’t place Douglas cones. I didn’t get caught out with the alder cones!!!! Sneaky barlambs.

That’s the one. Taught that to a friend only yesterday, I’ve remembered quite a lot of my trees and shrubs since I was at Merrist Wood in 1987. A lot of it has stuck, the more decorative and less usual ones are like you say, familiar but leave me guessing.

Alder cones, yeah they tried that trick. The other one they’d try and catch us out with was Hornbeam and Beech

 

[MrEd]

Norway Spruce = Christmas tree until the Nordman fir arrived.

Yep and some of them here are huge specimens, used a telehandler to put a star on one last year, can’t find a photo though

 

[Glow_worm]

Norway Spruce = Christmas tree until the Nordman fir arrived.

Yes, the ones that actually smelled of Christmas, but dropped needles. Oh gosh what a hardship in the age of the vacuum cleaner...

 

[Mesquite]

You really can't beat spending time by a campfire in some woodland. Thanks for sharing it with us

 

[Falstaff]

You y don’t need that sort of brain clog for bushcraft unless you want To for some other reason.
All you need to know is what works for you.

Thanks for the reassurance. I think there are just a few I should learn because of their useful applications, and maybe a few easy common foraging ones.

 

[Pattree]

For fuel I’d get to know oak, ash, beech and birch very well indeed. Not just the leaves but the bark, branching and the silhouette in all seasons. They are very different in woodland from the stand alone illustrations in reference books. It’s worth recognising sycamore because it doesn’t burn all that well and sweet chestnut because it spits but you’ll soon learn that anyway.

Most softwoods burn OK dead but don’t usually last long. Larch is good but you’ll get splinters in your hands. I’m talking UK here. (Sequoia is practically fire proof!)

For structures - well anything legally and environmentally available that is the right shape for your purposes. It only becomes critical if you are building a trestle bridge for a railway.

For making fire - there is a whole thread on it.

I also got caught out by a bard of an arb examiner who nodded towards a distant tree in a hedgerow. “You’ll know that of course” he said. Sure, it’s a sycamore. (thinks - don’t waste my time). It was a bloody Zelcova planted as an experiment to replace elm hedging!

I’d get an identity wrong more often than I’d get it right these days. I carry fuel in with me. (I don’t carry ash out)

 

[Falstaff]

Thanks, I was thinking of posting it as a general forum thought provoker/ideas, but I think you've covered it.
Birch for sure, because of it's many uses - firelighting, tools/implements/ containers, sap tapping etc. You're right about the bark/colour etc, in winter that's about all there is to go on.

 

[Pattree]

Deleted - Double post

 

[Nice65]

Thanks, I was thinking of posting it as a general forum thought provoker/ideas, but I think you've covered it.
Birch for sure, because of it's many uses - firelighting, tools/implements/ containers, sap tapping etc. You're right about the bark/colour etc, in winter that's about all there is to go on.

Bud shape/size/colour. Whether it branches alternately or opposite (like Ash). You’ll readily recognise a Beech bud as they’re long and pointy and you’ll be wiping tears from the eye that got stabbed by it

A Winter twig ident was also something we had to do.

While you’re out, go and look at the winter twigs of the trees whose identity you already know.

 

[Pattree]

Deleted double post - again!

 

[Pattree]

OK. but would you recognise an oak flower (either of them)?

In practice you soon get to the stage where you don’t think about it, it becomes like the bird watcher’s “Jizz” - it “Just Is“ and you pick it up

 

[MrEd]

Uploaded a small clip of my nephew using a fire steel to ignite fat wood (previously foraged by me in this same woodland)

Fatwood and firesteel demonstration. First time lighting it

 

[Nice65]

OK. but would you recognise an oak flower (either of them)?

In practice you soon get to the stage where you don’t think about it, it becomes like the bird watcher’s “Jizz” - it “Just Is“ and you pick it up

Yeah, but that’s not really the point is it? I know my trees already, but as you said in your previous post, get to know the important ones.

It isn’t ’just is’, you have to learn them, and you do that by familiarization. Like, Ash has opposite buds, they’re quite large and black.

Dead leaves beneath winter trees can be helpful too.

 

[Chris]

Learning trees is very helpful if you're interested in mycology or foraging for mushrooms. It can be both an indicator that some might be nearby and a key identifier of species.

 

[Nice65]

Uploaded a small clip of my nephew using a fire steel to ignite fat wood (previously foraged by me in this same woodland)

Fatwood and firesteel demonstration. First time lighting it

Nice one, good you got him going with a relatively easy first fire start, he knows he can do it now. Douglas Fir makes great fatwood, really resinous stuff.