Wild Alphabet - A

Ancient woodland
Ancient woodland is usually defined as woodland that has been in existence since 1600. In practice, since woodland was rarely planted before this date, any woodland growing in 1600 is likely to be a fragment of the Wildwood, the forest that colonised most of the British Isles after the last Ice Age.

These Ancient Woodlands are incredibly rich in plants and animals, some of which are almost never found in younger woods. Most have a long history of use by man, including coppicing, harvesting of timber and pannage for pigs. But as long as there has been continuous tree cover over much of the ground the unique flora and fauna can survive.

Ancient Woodlands are an irreplaceable treasure. Cheshire is not a heavily wooded county, but we do have some ancient woodlands, such as CWTs Owley Wood nature reserve near Weaverham and Warburtons Wood near Kingsley.

Adders tongue
Growing only 10cm high, this tiny fern is easily overlooked. Rare in Cheshire, the Adders tongue (Latin name: Ophioglossum vulgatum) is found in damp grassland which has not been ploughed for many years. At first sight it doesn’t even look like a fern, there are one or two spear-shaped leaves and a short spike growing from the centre, which gives the plant its name. This spike bears two rows of spoors – its common feature with all other ferns. The central spike also gives the fern its name, as it was thought to resemble a snales tongue. Because of this resemblance, in bygone days it was believed to be a cure for snake-bite.

The Adders tongue spends most of the year as an underground rhizome, the leaves are only above ground in late summer, so now is a good time to look for this unusual fern.

Alder
The Alder is a tree of wet ground and riversides, it grows most happily when its roots are in water. Perhaps due to its swampy home, the wood of the Alder does not rot in wet conditions, making it ideal for use under water. Canal lock gates are often made of Alder, and much of Venice is built on piles of Alder wood sunk deep into the mud of the lagoon.

The wood of the Alder does not burn well, but it does make excellent charcoal, which was once in demand for the manufacture of gunpowder.

The tree has a distinctive outline, with a long trunk and narrow crown. The female flowers ripen into small cones. Once the seeds have fallen the empty cones stay hanging from the branches for up to a year, making the alder very easy to identify.
There are several species of alder, only the grey alder is native to Britain. Other species are often planted as they grow quickly and tolerate poor soil conditions.

Azure Damselfly
Damselflies are relatives of the much larger dragonflies. They have 4 long narrow wings, and when at rest damselflies hold their wings back over their body (dragonflies keep theres spread open). Although damselflies have bodies up to 3.5cm long, the body is so narrow and the wings so fine they are hard to see in flight – look for an electric blue ‘needle’ hovering above the water or over waterside vegetation.

The Azure Damselfly (Latin name: Coenagrion puella) is one of the commonest damselflies in Cheshire, however in flight it looks very similar to a number of other blue damselfly species – you need an expert to tell them apart.

Anemone, Wood
Also known as the Windflower, this is one of the more delicate-looking of our woodland wildflowers. The fragile flowers have six white petals, sometimes blushing a gentle pink. The leaves are deeply divided, forming a feathery, dark-green backdrop to the flowers. The flowers open fully only in sunshine, anemones will not flourish in deep shade. They like woodlands where they flourish in the dappled light and shade, flowering in spring before the canopy bursts into leaf, shading them out for the rest of the year.

In Britain the anemones rarely produce viable seed so the plant spreads as the roots grow laterally. This means it is a very poor coloniser of new sites, so wood anemone are only found where there has been woodland since time immemorial. But where they are found, they can form broad carpets, often intermingled with other ancient woodland specialist, such as the bluebell.

This article was originally published in Cheshire Life magazine