Went to Whitlaw Woods, on the southern edge of Hawick yesterday, a mixed ancient and secondary woodland, situated on the steep southern bank of the Slitrig Water, that occasionally slides down to meet the river. You can read more about the site here – http://gateway.snh.gov.uk/sitelink/siteinfo.jsp?pa_code=1117
Its amazing how quickly spring moves on, when I was at this site back in February, there was frost on the ground, and nothing on the plant front had moved. All was still tightly tucked away against the cold of winter. Now a couple of months later and life had returned, in fact it almost feels like another world. Instead of bare ground there is green growth everywhere, carpets of both Ransoms and Dog’s Mercury, produced dense areas of colour. These patches were accompanied by the delicate white flowers of both the Wood Anemone and Wood Sorrel, and the occasional patch of pale yellow Primrose.
With careful searching one of my favourite plants was also easy to find, the delicate cubic pale green inflorescence of Moschatel, with single flowers on each of the four sides of a cubic head, and a fifth forming the top side, and each with delicate yellow anthers. This plant is well named in some parts of the country, where it is called the “Townhall Clock”. In Cheshire it was also once called the “Five-faced Bishop” after a church dignitary who continual changed his mind.
Then above the trees were also rapidly moving towards producing a canopy, Wych Elms and Hawthorns were already covered in a scattering of leaves. The Hazels had already had their catkins and dropped the brown remains, while Blackthorns, produced drifts of white flowers, and the occasional Willow had fluffy catkins heavy with yellow pollen.
Oh yes – Bring on the spring!
Whitlaw Woods – 12 April 2012 (Copyright – Carol Jones)
lostnaturalist 