The bark of a plane tree

This morning, I found some messages on a UK frisbee forum on Facebook enquiring about former friends of mine from when we all played together in the Ally Pally Tossers frisbee team in the late 1970s and early 80s. Another friend from those days, Jacques D., who was also a player in Belgium, then emailed me directly and I'm so glad to have re-established contact after about 25 years. Perhaps we can visit hi en route to the Netherlands this summer, if we go to visit woodpeckers' brother

Then I got a call from John W., wondering if I fancied another trip to Westonbirt Arboretum. We went there together a few weeks ago and John wanted to become a member there as well. So we set off early this afternoon as the sun tried to break through the clouds, and I enjoyed being a passenger for a change so I could look at the countryside.

As always we chatted away about both small and large issues, politics and the state of the world, anecdotes and ideas, and then once in the woodlands, about the amazing trees, blossom, flowers, seeds, lichens, mosses and bark. When looking at the exterior of the woods there seemed to be very few trees in leaf, as if spring still hadn't actually arrived. But once we got up close we could see some many little buds opening up, with tiny flowers in vivid colours, as well as the celandines, primroses and violets on the woodland floor. Some trees just made us gasp with amazement both at their unusual characteristics as well as the beauty of their intricate forms. One particular favourite was the Full Moon Maple, Acer Japonicum, whose delicate green leaves were just opening following its tiny red flowers with yellow stamens.

I don't remember the name of this plane tree which was one of a pair on either side of a path through the woods. We were astonished at the incredible surface textures of its trunk where over time areas of the bark have peeled away leaving the exposed wood to weather and be covered with algae and lichen. It was hard to capture how thick some of the bark which has fallen away must have been. The image shows a 35cm section across the trunk of the tree.

Visiting an arboretum which has been designed and created to demonstrate examples of differences between and the variety within species was very stimulating, reminding me of the wondrous world we inhabit.