In an almost silent late afternoon I have descended steeply through the thickly wooded path on a spur of the downs. The only sound is that of a blackbird. It has chosen, as is its habit, the very best notes in the very finest order to punctuate just such a dark autumn afternoon. It is indeed as if, as Edward Thomas wrote in The South Country, it “gathers up all the low-lit beauty into one carol”.
Emerging from beneath the canopy I take a moment to notice the great smears of unlikely tropical colour among the trees lining the chalky path. Delicately spectacular, there are few more exotic-looking things than a spindle tree in full autumn decoration. This is especially so when it’s nestled in among the damp beech woods.
In this most English of landscapes, when its fruit cases are pink and fully ripe, the spindle (Euonymus europaeus) looks at the very least out of place. Any other such temerity at this time of year might be branded a garden escape, some Victorian plant collector’s whimsy or, worse, an invasive species. It isn’t, though. It’s a hard-bitten native, this one.
The spindle’s curiously shaped, four-lobed seed cases have been a bright coral pink through September and into the early part of October. But as they ripen they’ve faded to a more stately, ecclesiastical magenta, and many have opened to reveal a shining amber fruit.
On these islands, as its name attests, the hard, straight twigs once made enviable spindles; and with another use came another archaic name, the skewerwood tree. In France the dense wood makes the most desirable artists’ charcoal; in the stomach, the bitter fruit provokes a violent reaction.
I take one of the oddly shaped fruits between my fingers, which are becoming increasingly numb with protest at the cold of the approaching evening. I take too a certain pride in one of our native trees producing such a paradise of colour, seemingly at odds with the palette of the afternoon.
Today, the spindles are a rebellion against the pallor of their neighbouring trees; they are brave impressionist paintings among the ash and crab apple.
Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary
