Tree: Old common boundary of Hounslow Heath, Hounslow, west London, November 2016
Species: English oak, Quercus robur
Age: Between 200-300 years?
Status: Under attack
This phone photo was all I could take at the time of this sprawling specimen, so let’s consider it a sketch. It was on the western edge of Hounslow Heath in west London. I know less about west London’s natural history than the south, though I am familiar with the Crane valley. This oak is probably a coppice or a felled, accidental coppice, which has regrown. It is well-climbed but showed signs of charring from fire at the base. Gorse nearby had been burnt in what are considered arson attacks. In many ways the fact this tree is not older and more cavernous and has fewer points of entry for fire may protect it. Hopefully the arsonists – common in urban nature reserves – grow out of it or else are prosecuted.
Daniel Greenwood 