Above crumpled grey roots like the enormous feet of a
prehistoric elephant, leaves form a vaulted roof as grand as a cathedral. Huge
limbs stretch out for 24 metres on each side. They smell damp. Stand beneath
“the Tree”, as this magical old beech is known to anyone who walks this corner
of the Chilterns, near
In its dotage, this great tree is being carefully nurtured.
Across the UK, however, many of an estimated 1,00,000 ancient trees—which could
represent 70 per cent of all ancient trees in Europe—are neglected or at risk
of being felled.
A tree is defined as ancient if it is unusually old for
its species. It is said that an oak spends 300 years growing, 300 years living
and 300 years dying. Such a long-lived species would have to be 600 years old
to be classified as ancient. Beeches are prone to fungal attack and are less
long-lived: an ancient beech is anything over 300 years old. Birch trees have
even shorter lives; one that has lived for two centuries is very old.
Unique
habitats
Ancient trees are ecological treasures because they
provide unique habitats for rare plants, insects, birds and mammals. When they
become ancient, trees such as oaks and sweet chestnuts “grow down”, dying at
the top and forming a new crown of leaves below so the tree shrinks and hunches
like a very old man. Ancient trees also hollow out: fungi feed on the deadwood
in the heart of the tree and invertebrates such as rare beetles move into the
hollows, followed by birds and bats. Three-quarters of
Standing beneath the huge old beech, contemplating its
warty imperfections and huge stretch-marks where its trunk has bent and
twisted, it seems incredible that it has stood witness to four centuries of
humans scurrying around it.
While this example partly owes its long life to being
pollarded by humans over the centuries (the traditional way of harvesting its
branches at head height, pollarding mimics the natural retrenchment of trees
such as oaks, and ensures species like beech don’t grow too tall and fragile),
trees have their own clever ways of prolonging their life. They can eat
themselves. When fungus attacks the dead heartwood, a tree might send aerial
roots into the hollow and start drawing the nutrients out, recycling itself so
it lives longer.
Trees can also walk. Slowly. If a branch touches the
ground, it can send out roots and grow up again.
The
The last century, however, has not been kind to ancient
trees. They have been ploughed too close to, soil grazed too intensively around
them and fertilisers and pesticides used too wantonly, killing both trees and
species of fungi that have a symbiotic relationship with them. Then there was
the ripping out of native broad-leaved trees and planting of supposedly more
productive non-native conifers after the Second World War.
Fragile
treasures
Trees may be impressively long-lived but they are more
fragile than we imagine. Too many livestock sheltering under a tree and
defecating there can fatally damage it. Even a footpath under a tree can
compress its roots and destroy it. Ancient trees are often hollow: the holes
make fantastic dens but children often light small fires in them.
Trees can also die of sunburn. Close to the great beech
at Ashridge, another beech is dying because a vast branch of another tree fell
nearby, exposing this tree to the sun. Beech has thin bark and, just like a
pale-skinned human, if it has grown up protected from the sun and is suddenly
exposed, it burns horribly. Grey squirrels stripping bark is an increasing
problem: holes in the bark allow fungal diseases in, which can weaken a tree
and finally cause it to fall over. Fungal diseases introduced by squirrels also
stain the quality beech wood that the Chilterns is renowned for, making it
commercially worthless.
Ancient trees are not merely great statues to
biodiversity, they document human history; they have a social and cultural
significance, as well as an ecological one. During the Second World War,
American soldiers shot deer, chased local women and prepared for war in the
woods at Ashridge. On 4 May 1944, a few weeks before D-Day, when many young men
would perish, a group of GIs carved a “V” for victory and the names of their
home states—from Texas to South Dakota—into the trunk of another Chiltern beech
nearby. It is still there, a memorial in bark, the carving slowly fattening as
the tree grows so you can rest a finger in the V now.
So far, the Woodland Trust of UK has logged 38,000
ancient trees through the work of ecologists and ordinary members of the
public, who can record trees at ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk.
The
—© Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/23/stories/2009072355740900.htm