Microsoft news

A Microsoft news item (via the Edge browser) caught my eye this morning on account of a striking picture from the Czech Republic of a specimen of the critically endangered sorbus rhodanthera.

This turned out to come from an open access report (reference 1) about endangered trees in Europe. While not from the European Union, the preface to this report is written in impenetrable Euro-speak, quite impenetrable enough to have Euro-haters frothing at the mouth. While the body of the report has lots of complicated maps and lots of handsome pictures of trees.

The first of these handsome pictures does not come from the Czech Republic at all, rather from our very own River Wey at Headley Park, was taken by one John Spooner and is available from something called Flickr, a something which I have heard of but know nothing about. It caught my eye because we have a Headley Heath near us, here at Epsom, but this Headley turns out to be near Bramshott, in Hampshire, just off the A3. Also the home to the River Wey Aqueduct of Bramshott Court, seemingly an important piece of early modern water engineering, helping along the watering of the meadows there, thus substantially increasing their value. Bing has not been terribly helpful on this occasion, so clearly all places to visit next time we are at a loose end, or need a comfort break, on this stretch of the A3.

Then following up our troubles with our box bushes, rather confusingly called buxus sempervirens or everlasting box, I thought to ask the report about box - with 11 of the twelve mentions being down to boxes in the text, rather than box trees in the ground, with the trees being classified as of least concern. Clearly not enough of the many authors of this report have heard of the box tree caterpillar. Report completely discredited.

I associated to the scene in an episode of Lewis (on DVD for once, rather than ITV3) in which university professors visit university libraries (in this case the Bodleian) in order to check that all their books are present and correct on their proper shelves.

But I have taken a copy of the report and it may get a second look at some point.

PS: I feel sure that we have walked in the woods at Bramshott Common, and taken pictures there, noticed in the first instance because Canadian troops were stationed there during the first and second world wars. Many of them died there, of the flu epidemic which came after the first. But I have yet to turn up the post.

Reference 1: European Red List of Trees - Malin Rivers, Emily Beech and others - 2019.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/box-tree-caterpillar.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/caterpillar-control-episode-1.html. There is also an episode 2.