Quercus oxyodon

A rare oak, Quercus oxyodon, is flowering at High Beeches.

Although evergreen Quercus oxyodon sheds its leaves in the spring and then flowers before producing new foliage in the summer.  It is a low growing tree of up to 10 metres in height with wide spreading branches.

 A native of China and probably introduced by Ernest Wilson in 1900.

The tree at High Beeches is an old one.  There is another at Caerhays planted in l919 but there is a debate as to whether or not they are the same plant.
A small number of other gardens have young plants, including Nymans and Chevithorne Barton.

Liriodendron tulipifera

LIRIODENDRON TULIPIFERA, the Tulip Tree

 

 

A large tree of up to 30 metres in height.  The tulip tree has very distinct foliage, which turns golden-yellow in autumn.  It flowers in June and the flowers are not unlike tulips hence its name.  It is an early introduction to this country from North America, the first record of at Tulip Tree is from 1688 and it may well have been introduced earlier.

 

The magnificent Tulip Tree at High Beeches grows on the bank between the road and the car park and was probably planted in the early 1900s.

 

In praise of buttercups and Ox-eye Daisies

The Ox-eye Daisy, Moon Daisy or Dog Daisy Leucanthemum vulgare , a member of the Asteraceae family, is the largest native daisy and a familiar sight brightening many a road side verge.

The daisies and buttercups turn the meadow at High Beeches into a haze of white and gold in June, particularly beautiful in the evening light.  They attract, along, with the other wildflowers, a huge number of insects and butterflies to the meadow.

 Mysteriously the number of daisies in the meadow fluctuates every year.  They are perennials and seed copiously and as the meadow is managed in the same way each year, the reason for fluctuation in numbers must be down to changes in the weather.

,Both the Meadow Buttercup, Ranunculus acris, and Creeping Buttercup, Ranunculus repens are to be found in the meadow.  Lesser Spearwort, Ranunculus flammula grows in wet places in the garden.  Recently Arthur Hoare of the Sussex Botanical Recording Society has also identified the Bulbous Buttercup, Ranunculus bulbosus, also growing in the garden.