This was our first meeting to have a special focus on trees, inspired by the survey of ancient trees in Surrey which we are currently undertaking. Despite a disappointingly a wet day - which got even wetter later! - no fewer than 14 people attended, including two prospective new members, and we spent over 3 hours on an itinerary worked out by Dick. This primarily took in the Oatlands Recreation Ground and the grounds of Oatlands Park Hotel.
Our meeting point, the car park in Oatlands Drive, provided a good start. Here were some striking trees already! Red horse chestnut (Aesculus x carnea), purple-leaved Pissard's plum (Prunus cerasifea `pissardii') with some `pocket plums' still evident, galls due to the fungus Taphrina pruni which seems to be increasingly abundant, and two variegated ash-leaved maple (Acer negundo), both in part losing their variegation and reverting to type. It was interesting to compare their keys with those of nearby sycamores (Acer pseudoplatanus). We continued to the Recreation Ground, where some recent plantings of purple crab and honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) of the golden variety `Sunburst' were noted. Along the east edge is a line of red oaks (Quercus rubra), a frequent and often naturalised alien introduced from the Americas. Their large, pointed-lobed leaves were compared to those of the English or pedunculate oak (Q. robur). Nearby, two old horse chestnut trees (Aesculus hippocastanum) were a worthwhile next stop. The first one had a girth of 154 inches, whereas the far one by the Scout Hut measured 178 inches, a good size for this species - none larger than 200 inches is known in Surrey so far. The recently introduced parasites and pests that have attacked this species were noted, particularly the leaf-mining moth Cameraria ohridella, which is so disfiguring later in the season, and the powdery mildew Uncinula flexuosa, which is less of a problem.
Coming back along the other side we stopped at the cut stump of an old sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), with a girth of 191 inches 2 feet from the base. It would have been a lovely old tree, cut in recent years perhaps as too near to housing. Luckily it is not dead but has plenty of regrowth around the base. Two old sweet chestnuts still surviving in the grounds were then seen nearby, one of them 193 inches in girth, not by a long way the biggest in Surrey, but nevertheless trees of great character with their characteristic twisting bark, and probably around 250 years old. A tattered member of the red oak group in the playground, suspected to be scarlet oak (Q. coccinea), was noted briefly, and the party then moved on into Oatlands Drive, towards Weybridge. A good Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) on the grass verge was the first stop, the characteristic cones with their three-pronged bracts being demonstrated by Dick. A more impressive tree, though part-hidden behind the wall of the garden, is the old oak (Q. robur) pollard in the garden of `Grosvenor Lodge', not as ancient as many of the pollards around Surrey but worth a look.
The party then crossed Oatlands Drive, towards the Hotel drive, noting lots of locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) in flower. On to the back lawn of the hotel, where our first true champion tree of the day caused great excitement, and lots of photos. This was the giant red oak, a truly impressive tree with spreading branches, standing on the ridge with a good view across to the river, and with a girth of 280 inches surely greater than its age, estimated to be around 250 years! By now the storm had well and truly arrived but we pressed on to see the nearby weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica var. pendula), a lovely tree with immensely wide-spreading branches, unfamiliar to many people, and providing an umbrella in the rain. Despite the rain the group gathered under the red oak for a photograph taken by Mariko (see below).
Just across from the oak are some yew trees: these are only young, but a much older specimen stands near to the hotel entrance - worth noting for the immense longevity of the tree, some reliably attaining over 2000 years, the oldest living species in Europe. It was noted that the English Oak on the lawn had lost a limb during that week, and we then stopped to see the grove of huge, ancient strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo), almost champions, with huge, partly prostrate, splayed and hawser-like limbs. Now nearing the end of our walk, we moved over to the two old cedar trees - one rather nice Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlanticus), and a large cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani), a well-known tree with a plaque and famous but highly dubious claim "to have been planted by Prince Henry of Oatlands"! A nice old tree in an historically interesting site, but smaller than several others around Surrey.
Brian Spooner & Dick Alder