Adaptable Elder – and a nice review of my book by Mark Avery!

One of many many issues that I like about Widespread Elder (Sambucus nigra), and which I didn’t have area to correctly convey in my article concerning the species final yr, is simply how adaptable it’s as a species. The tree possesses quite a lot of what biologists time period “phenotypic plasticity“. That is the power of an organism to flexibly change elements of its morphology or behaviour or physiology in response to variations within the atmosphere. Vegetation are particularly good at this as a result of, in the event that they discover themselves rising in less-than-optimal situations, they’ll’t simply uproot themselves and depart for pastures new. That is apparent to anybody who has seen a houseplant struggling in a darkish nook of a room: the poor plant will etiolate and bend as its yellowing foliage tries to achieve the sunshine from a distant window. The identical plant grown on a sunny windowsill shall be extra compact, greener, and more healthy.

With regards to Elder, and certainly different bushes, winter is commonly one of the best time to see this plasticity, when the trunks and boughs should not cloaked in greenery. On a coastal stroll at Klintebjerg yesterday, I noticed three reasonably totally different phenotypes of Widespread Elder which properly illustrate this environmental context dependency.

The primary was a wind-tortured tree rising on the base of a low hill, instantly within the enamel of the prevailing Kattegat climate, its trunk bent away from the ocean and its branches lopsidedly pruned:

The second was a extra lucky specimen, rising within the lee of that very same hill and allowed to unfold its symmetrical arms, as if ready to embrace any passing birds. It had clearly by no means been pruned again by the landowner, who had allowed it to develop as a tremendous, single-trunked small tree:

As we walked again down the hill by way of a slender path, enclosed and over-topped by a fairy story cover of dense, twisted Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), I noticed one other phenotype, totally different once more. I initially thought that they have been the stems of a woody climber, maybe Previous Man’s Beard (Clematis vitalba) or European Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum). Once I regarded nearer it was clear that these have been Elder, rising slender and lengthy, utilizing the Blackthorn as help, as they struggled to achieve up by way of the cover to realize the sunshine:

There have been a number of people like this, presumably the results of seed dispersal by birds perched inside the Blackthorn. I don’t suppose that I’ve ever seen Elder rising in fairly this fashion earlier than, however then how typically will we get to see deeply into the secrets and techniques hidden inside a dense Blackthorn patch?

I had solely deliberate to put in writing about Widespread Elder at present, however I can’t resist mentioning that, over on his weblog, ornithologist Mark Avery has written a really good evaluation of Birds & Flowers: An Intimate 50 Million Yr Relationship. He describes my e book as having:

…a lightness of contact and tone that shouldn’t be taken for lightness of understanding….This can be a tremendous instance of a e book which is pitched to extend the general public understanding of ecology and evolution, and succeeds.

Thanks Mark, that’s very gratifying to learn, and I’m glad that you simply loved it!