On Sunday last (October 17th) I visited Knocksink Nature Reserve near Enniskerry in Co. Wicklow. Now is the best time to get out and collect seeds and as Autumn is coming late this year there are loads of leaves still on the trees but with shades of yellow, brown and red to mix the colours.
It was a short enough drive from Dublin, but, a word of warning, don’t rely on Google maps to get you there, it brought me about a mile in the wrong direction. Once you arrive there’s a small amount of parking available.
I’ve included a custom Google map below with a marker at the entrance to make things easier if you decide to visit. Incidentally this is the first post where I will be including the scientific names for each tree I mention. I may go and edit them into older posts and I may not. Here’s the evidence of me trying anyway. There’s a great mix of tree species in Knocksink; Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea), Holly (Ilex aquilinum) and Hazel (Corylus avellana) , Beech (Fagus sylvatica) , Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), Elder (Sam bucus nig), Goat Willow (Salix caprea), Elm (Ulm us glabra), Hawthorn (Crataegus m onogyna), Silver Birch (B. pendula) and Whitebeam (Sorcus aria).
This was the first time I had a chance to try out that tree identifying app on my Iphone. Unfortunately it couldn’t help with the first tree I cam across. Luckily I had by much more knowledgeable better half with me who correctly identified it as Goat Willow (Salix caprea). I had never seen this particular species before. The leaves are alternate and elliptical with a fuzzy surface on the underside of the leaf. The app also failed to identify Hazel (Corylus avellana) , there’s definitely scope for an Irish oriented identification app I feel. The first tree the app identified correctly was the Beech (Fagus sylvatica). The application was built by a German I think so it is focused on the central European region.
See below for images of this trip, if you mouse over the image you will get a description of what it is.
I decided to stop using the app and just get my advice from an actual botanist for the rest of the trip. We saw seeds from Ash trees and I collected hazelnuts and acorns for planting on the way back to the car, fording the stream in the process. There hasn’t been much rainfall for this time of year so it was possible to keep totally dry doing it. We also spotted some Orchids that had gone over in the flood plain of the stream. I hope to plant the acorns and hazelnuts so I’ve put them in the fridge to stop them drying out. I found this guide to growing Hazelnuts from seed and this page about growing oak trees from acorns. I realise the chances of one of these acorns growing into a mature Oak are slim but you have to start somewhere. I think I will try and grow some of them in a window box to see if they germinate at least.
Image Gallery
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Google Map
Links
Wicklow Nature Reserves - http://www.npws.ie/en/NatureReserves/Wicklow/
Site description http://www.npws.ie/en/media/Media,4031,en.pdf