Saturday 27 March 2021

White stuff

We have been very aware of small trees with white flowers this spring, with lots of them in and around Chertsey Way on the Manor Hospital site and lots of them on the Ewell by-pass, with my passing these on my regular spins around Jubilee Way. There are even some at the bottom of a neighbour's garden. Our own damson tree, at the bottom of our own garden (more accurately, the top), is long gone, so long that I forget why I chopped it down. With being too big to pick no longer seeming like a good enough reason.

We are told, perhaps by the RHS, that it has been a good year for same and we are invited to post our pictures on social media. We may have been given an Instagram hash tag to post against, or something of that sort. Not being into social media my grasp of the jargon is very weak - and I have elected to post my picture, from somewhere in and around Chertsey Way here, instead.

All this has prompted investigation into white thorns, blackthorns, sloes, damsons and other sorts of plum - although we do not yet have any idea of how to distinguish one from another. Hawthorn we can do, but that does not come for a few weeks yet. Furthermore, I don't think it is as easy as the number of petals and I doubt whether colour is very reliable. And it seems unlikely that we will get into counting stamens or anything like that. So who knows where the investigation will end.

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