Classic Maple Leaf

For this month's page we have briefly left Reg's Meadow to take a look at a family of trees which can be found growing around other parts of the Hawk Conservancy - the Maples. These are looking particularly attractive at the moment, with their fresh and colourful spring and early summer foliage.

The maples Acer are a highly distinctive group of trees found all round the Northern hemisphere, with the greatest number of species in Japan, China and Northern North America. Many of them have the classic five-lobed “Canadian Flag” leaf shape. The leaf on the flag is a stylised version of the Sugar Maple, whose syrup is tapped to make maple syrup, and whose brilliant scarlet autumn colour contributes to the spectacle of the North American “fall”.

Field Maple	Straight Line Seeds

The Hawk Conservancy has five species of maple, of which one is both rare and unusual in appearance. Of the five, only one is in fact native, being the only native maple in Britain: the Field Maple Acer campestris. This tree has rather small leaves with five rounded, smooth lobes, and the two seeds of its fruit are set in a straight line. It is only found on the chalk, where it can be very common. Most trees are quite small, but they can grow to a considerable size: the big trees on the right at the end of the meadow, with the hack site in them, are this species. There are many others around the park and in the surrounding countryside.

Sycamore Leaf	Variety "Simon Louis Feres"

The Sycamore or Great Plane Acer platanus is the most familiar of our maples. Originally from Southern Europe, it was probably imported as a timber tree by the Romans. It seeds vigorously and grows big. The five-lobed leaves have convex toothed edges. The leaves of young trees can often grow very big, up to 10 in (25 cm) across, and are tough and often blotched with black fungus. The green flowers hang in long bunches beneath the leaves and the fruit is the classic two-winged double seed. It is host to honeydew aphids and is thus not a good tree to park under! The largest sycamore within the park is a magnificent, pale-leafed variety called “Simon Louis Feres” in the area next to the ferret house. The leaves open sunrise pink and fade to pale gold-green. The name “platanus” means “plane”, but maples and planes are not related and the leaves are not very similar.

Norway Maple

The Norway Maple Acer platanoides was introduced from northern Europe in 1683. These rather more attractive cousins of the sycamore are planted all over the park in large numbers, especially in the woodland flying area, the picnic area and in the space between the lower flying ground entrance and the Harris hawk flying area. The five-lobed leaves have smooth concave sides and pointed tips at all corners. The flowers are pretty, in upright bunches of bright lime green, opening before the leaves, and the fruits a typical double-seeded and winged maple fruit. The name “platanoides” means “plane-like” – the leaves are not unlike those of a plane.

Variety "Crimson King"	Variety "Drummondii"

The original wild tree has thin, smooth, bright green leaves, but there are several very fine dark red trees of the variety “Crimson King”, around the park, which have gold rather than green flowers. The clump of trees near the vulture aviaries at the top of the park includes two gold-variegated specimens of the variety “Drummondii”. One of these is what is known as a “chimera” – it has apparently been produced by grafting a variegated specimen onto a normal green-leaved base, and the two different leaf colours appear mingled on the same tree.

Japanese Maple	Spring Red Foliage
Going Green	Variety "Dissectum"

The dainty Japanese Maple Acer palmatum came to Britain in 1820. Most of the small maples in the park (eg in the picnic area) are the common green-leaved, five-lobed type, with small, delicate leaves that are very minutely toothed. They produce miniature “sycamore” seeds, often bright red, and most have striking autumn colours. Most of the commonly-cultivated versions of this tree are dwarfed and very slow-growing. In the park, two different varieties are of particular interest: a low-growing variant with many-lobed, deeply-cut leaves, “Dissectum”, near the ash-leaved maple (see below) and an enchanting little tree by the entrance to the “owl garden”, which has beautiful red leaves in spring, turns green in summer and then becomes red again in autumn.

Ash-leaved Maple

The Ash-leaved Maple or Box Elder Acer negundo is the maple in the park that doesn’t look like one. Introduced from Eastern North America in 1688, this tree has leaves growing from a central stalk with between three and seven leaflets on each stalk. However, the dangling doubled-winged seeds give the game away. The preferred variety in this country is the cream-and-green foliaged “Variegata”, one of which is the strange little tree, with stunted, twisted foliage, growing near the White-tailed eagle aviary. This variety only produces female flowers, so the tiny bunches of fruits can never set seed. The wild type is not commonly planted here, but forms a handsome and very vigorous tree: there is an unusually large planting of this species, around 40 years old, along one road in Basingstoke.

Wild Service Tree

So, if not every maple looks like one, it’s equally true that not everything that looks like a maple is! There are three other trees on the park which have maple-like lobed leaves. Near the hospital is an attractive little tree with leaves rather like a Norway maple. In spring it has pretty white flowers, and in autumn red berries. This is another chalkland native, the rare Wild Service Tree Sorbus torminalis, which belongs to the Rose family and is closely related to the Rowan and Whitebeam.

London Plane	Flaky Bark
Leaves and Fruits	"Itchy Ball" Plane Seeds

Near the hen-house in the Woodland Owls arena, and also in the lower flying grounds, are London Planes Platanus x hispanica, an artificial hybrid between the Oriental plane of south-east Europe and Asia, and the American plane. It was probably introduced to Britain from Spain around 1680. The hybrid ancestry is shown in the variability of leaf shape of this tree, but it is a broad, rather Norway maple-like five-lobed shape. Planes are much planted in cities because they are tolerant of smoke and pollution, as they have shiny leaves and shed their bark in attractive patterns, which prevents its pores from becoming blocked by dirt. Their fruits take the form of dangling spiky balls on long stems, which used to be very popular among school children as “itchy balls”, living up to this name when dropped inside the back of someone’s clothing!

Sweet Gum

One more tree, next to the pond in the Owl arena, has a considerable similarity to a plane, with five-lobed leaves and hanging ball-shaped fruit, but in fact it is now considered to be unrelated. This is the Sweet Gum Liquidambar styraciflua. This common garden tree was introduced from North America around 1681, and is much planted for the spectacular autumn colour of its thick, rather waxy leaves. Perhaps surprisingly, this tree is related to the Witch hazels Hamamelis with their fragrant yellow flowers.

The leaves of maples and the other similar-looking species growing around the Hawk Conservancy come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours, from the large Norway Maple to the tiny Field Maple, with pink, red, yellow and many different shades of green in between. Some are big and solid, others slender and feathery – well worth a look next time you take a walk around the grounds.

This is the commonest British speedwell, a creeping and upright hairy perennial of the Figwort family, that grows up to 20cm (8in), with oval to triangular hairy leaves and bright blue flowers with four petals, darker blue lines and a white centre or “eye”. The stems have opposite lines of hairs that act as a barrier to protect the plant from unwelcome crawling insects. It is a very common plant of woodland, hedge banks and grassland, often seen in large clumps, flowering from March to July, and will grow on most kinds of soil. The plant is a good source of nectar for solitary bees.

Alternative names include Bird’s Eye, Cat’s Eye, Eye of the Child Jesus, Christ’s Eyes, Angel’s Eyes, Fluellin the Male, Paul’s Betony, Farewell and Goodbye. The Scientific name Veronica, which applies to all members of the speedwell family, is linked to St. Veronica and possibly comes from the Latin vera meaning “true” and the Greek eikon meaning “image”. It has also been suggested that it comes from the Greek words phero meaning “I bring” and nike meaning “victory”, referring to the medical effectiveness of the plants to cure diseases. The specific Latin name chamaedrys means “ground oak” or “dwarf oak”, and was given because the leaves were thought to resemble oak leaves. The common name Germander is a corruption of “chamaedrys” and there are a number of suggestions for the origins of “speedwell”, which are also sometimes applied to other members of the same plant family. A name applied to Persian speedwell, as a result of one of its medicinal uses as an expectorant, was “spit-well”, which may be a possible source of the name. The flowers are often found along the sides of roads, and are said to be speeding you on a journey. There was a tradition of handing a small bouquet of blue flowers to travellers boarding ships and wishing them a good voyage with the words “speed well”. In Ireland speedwells were sometimes sewn onto the clothes of travellers to bring them good fortune.

In folklore the association with St. Veronica comes from a legend telling that an unknown lady wiped Christ’s brow with her handkerchief as he walked to the cross, then dropped the handkerchief on a clump of blue flowers, which then carried an image of Christ’s face. Another version of the story said that the image was found on the handkerchief itself, which was kept in Rome as a holy relic, the “true image” of the scientific name, and the lady herself became sanctified as St. Veronica. The handing of posies of blue flowers to pilgrims setting off to Rome to see this relic was also accompanied by the words “God speed” or “speed well”. A little piece of English folklore from the north midlands says that the name “Bird’s Eye” came from a children’s belief that if you picked the flowers, birds would come and peck out your eyes!

Medicinally the plant was used in many countries as a blood purifier and as a remedy for a wide variety of ailments, including skin diseases, watery eyes, coughs and haemorrhages. Speedwell tea was considered a very good tonic and appetite stimulant.