The trees held on to their leaves surprising well this autumn until this week's storms. As usual, the oaks are now one of the last trees to put on their autumnal show of traffic light colours, from green to yellow, orange and finally ending up brown. Beeches were magnificent in the brilliant sunshine last weekend, glowing golden yellow like great big bonfires.
But how long will we see the pale yellow autumnal leaves of ash shining bright now that the trees are being savaged by ash dieback disease? Ironically, it was the prolific ash that rapidly helped fill in the gaps left by dead elm trees after Dutch elm disease took hold in the 1970s, and ash helped regenerate woodlands flattened after the great storm of October 1987. The tree was also prized by the Anglo-Saxons for its wood they used in spears and shield-handles – more recently it was used for hockey sticks, billiard cues and even aircraft wings on the de Havilland Mosquito in the second world war.
Ash dieback disease is caused by a pernicious fungus, but most trees would actually starve without friendly fungi that feed their roots with nutrients. That explains why woodlands in autumn are so good for finding mushrooms, such as the curly trumpet-shaped chanterelles with their fruity scent of apricots, often found growing under oaks and beeches. And the fabulous fly agaric often grows on birch roots – it sports a bright red toadstool with white spots, beloved of gnomes.
