BSBINews - BSBI Archive - Botanical Society of the British Isles

64 Conference Report - 2009 - BSBI Spring Conference on alien trees and shrubs, Berwick
sheep in habitat management and finally the
possible use of Japanese Knotweed in biomass
plantations.
Parties were then made up to walk the town
walls. During the walks Fraxinus ornus was
noted self-seeding in a corporation planting.
Dinner followed in the Conundrum restaurant,
close to the spot where John Ray found Tofieldia
pusilla in 1671. Table decorations of fresh
Bluebells had providentially been provided by
the owner's mother, little knowing that they
matched the Society's logo, and the evening
ended with a programme on the Northumbrian
pipes by newly-elected BSBI Council member
Chris Metherell and fellow members of
Piper's Wynd.
On Sunday a party of just over 50 members
and visitors first visited High Cocklaw farm,
where John and Sandy Izat showed us how
they had developed woodland and hedgerows
on their farm over twenty years from almost
nothing. The plantings were mainly of a traditional
mix of species with a little 'Leylandii'
used as a windbreak. They maintained the
plantings themselves to a high standard, utilising
the thinnings for fuel. There were a few
more exotic species such as Chamaecyparis
nootkatensis (Nootka Cypress). Delegates
were asked to consider how they would
approach the field-recording of such
woodlands. Curiosity was aroused by a strip
of Cichorium intybus (Chicory) surviving
from a 2008 wild-bird-mix sowing.
Next we were welcomed at Harry Frew's
Cheviot Trees nursery. Over 100 species are
mass-sown in trays of plastic cells in high-tech
poly tunnels. The customers are foresters and
farmers in Britain and overseas. Less usual
species noted included Juniperus communis
(Juniper) for conservation plantings, Ulex
europaeus (Gorse) for golf courses, the silverfirs
Abies nordmanniana and A. fraseri for
Christmas trees and Cotoneaster lacteus (Late
Cotoneaster) for hedging. Eucalyptus gunnii,
Miscanthus sinensis, Salix hybrids and two
unfamiliar Populus clones were being trialled
for biomass. The Corylus (hazel) grown is
mainly Kent cobnuts, as Scottish native
Hazels germinate poorly and nut output is low.
The afternoon was spent at Kyloe woods,
almost 1 ,000 acres of conifers managed by
Scottish Woodlands for the Fleming family,
with harvesting by small coupes rather than
large-scale clear-felling. Peter Hale and Ian
Robinson walked us through an area near the
fine crags of the whin sill where many of the
more exotic of the 100 conifer species in the
woods introduced by the Leyland family well
over a century ago have been allowed to
mature. Many species usually encountered as
single specimens, if at all, are here planted in
numbers. Notable species included Araucaria
araucana (Monkey-puzzle), which had
naturalised on the crags and self-seeded much
more widely; Pinus muricata (Bishop Pine),
with old cones surviving for many decades
and thus being noted on the main trunk as well
as branches (as reported by A F Mitchell); a
major stand of Sequoiadendron giganteum
(Wellingtonia); and Picea orientalis (Oriental
Spruce), with short non-prickly needles. The
ground flora under the mature conifers was
notably varied, giving the whole very much
the feeling of a true living woodland. In the
more commercial forestry, regeneration is
used as far as possible to re-stock after felling,
with a mixture of species being grown together.
Pseudotsuga menziesii is a favoured crop
species but Tsuga heterophylla (Western
Hemlock) self-seeds more abundantly and is
something of a problem.
On Monday a party of ten visited St Abbs
Head NNR, where we were welcomed by the
ranger Kevin Rideout. The highlights were the
bird-cliffs, with massed Guillemots and Razorbills,
colonies of Sedum rosea (Roseroot) on
cliffs near the lighthouse, Astragalus danicus
(Purple Milk-vetch) just coming into flower,
Minuartia verna (Spring Sandwort) on inland
cliffs and a hybrid horsetail Equisetum xlitorale
by Mire Loch, where a Wall Brown butterfly
was seen. These butterflies have only recently
colonised north into Berwickshire.
A further party of forty visited Lindisfarne
[no report available].