Nature Happenings #8
Goat willow seeds on the wind
This week’s Nature Happenings features something I am almost sure you will have seen but maybe not noticed over the last week or so. Goat willow (Salix caprea) has flowered and is now spreading seed far and wide by way of the wind. Stop for a moment almost anywhere you are walking, be it town, park or countryside, and there seems to be willow seed on the breeze. Tiny, woolly tufts of white, floating by in their hundreds, sometimes so numerous that you’d be forgiven for briefly wondering how it could be snowing on a sunny May afternoon.
Willows have male and female flowers on separate trees (they are dioecious, if you want to know the fancy word that humans use to describe such a phenomenon) and it’s only the female catkins that are broadcasting seeds across the land, the male pollen bearing catkins having done their part a few weeks ago. Willows seem to have a bad reputation and are generally scrubbed from the landscape in favour of more utilitarian species. But they are hugely valuable to wilder members of the community, being second only to oak trees in the number of species they support. Humans too have turned to willows in simpler times, for cordage and for medicine. The leaves and bark contain salicin which is said to help with pain relief and manage fevers. People would chew the inner bark to help with toothache (it’s thought that deer might do this too).
It’s actually mind boggling to think about just how many seeds are sent forth from willows every year, compared to how many new trees actually take root. During a bumper year, willows can coat the ground, trees and cobwebs in a thick downy covering of seeds. We once came across such a site in a Sussex woodland and for a moment, we were perplexed. What was this white veil covering the woodland floor? Spider webs? A fungus? But no. It was willow seeds, millions upon millions of them, a spectacular sight indeed.
Let us know if you spot any summer snow!