Have you ever been to Sherwood Heath in autumn to have a look at the fungus growing under the silver birch trees? The phenomenon happens most years and can be a remarkable sight, with large red and white mushrooms growing in large numbers around the trunks of birch trees but nowhere else. They do not appear around any other type of tree and tend to be most profuse around solitary birch trees.
The fungus is amanita muscaria and, from what I can see, the tree and the fungus feed off each other. The relationship appears to thrive in acidic or nutrient poor soils. The fungus is, I suppose, the star turn in the duo, the birch tree being what the ancient Greeks may have called the hoi polloi, or in other words the unimportant member of the group. Although the birch tends to be regarded as a bit of a weed in the tree world, it has a very important, and overlooked, role to play in woods and heathland.
Most birch trees in this country are silver birch or, to give them their Latin name, Betula Pendula. The tree has an open canopy which allows plenty of light to reach the ground. This allows the growth of grasses and flowering and other plants, which in turn encourages insects which also attracts birds. You may have seen tree stumps some 10 or 15 feet high, left after the tree has been cut down. This is because the tree is so attractive to insects and other small denizens.
There are other advantages of this invaluable tree. It is not particularly big, growing up to no more than 30 metres or so, and has a fairly slender trunk. The leaves are relatively small and the open canopy allows plenty of light and air in. The bark is originally a pale golden brown but as the tree grows the bark becomes a smooth silver. As the tree becomes older the bark thickens and becomes irregular with black markings. The leaves are triangular with serrated edges and quite small and delicate.
Leaving aside its beauty, the silver birch is a useful tree. It grows rapidly and tends to be the first arrival on bare land or, for example, after fire damage. It has many uses, including being planted for decorative purposes in gardens and parks, and is the national tree of Finland.
The birch, en masse, is beautiful and elegant. One of the most impressive sightings is at the entrance to Sherwood Heath, on the right hand side of what used to be the cricket pitch, between the Heath and the road to Worksop. There is a long row of birch, quite tall and slender, all with brilliant silver bark, gleaming as the sunlight strikes them. The line of trees gradually widens as you get to the end of the open grass and the path eventually leads through woodland, mainly birch, a couple of miles to the next village. A pleasurable walk, albeit slightly rough underfoot.
I walk from time to time in Boughton Brake and from one of the paths around Kath’s Glade there can be seen an area where birch trees predominate. The scene reminds me of the painting by Gustav Klimt of a birch wood near Vienna. I have tried repeatedly to photograph the birch trees in the Brake but I can never get the same effect. It is not the trees, they are as beautiful as ever. I can only presume that the light in Nottinghamshire is possibly not the same as that in Austria.