Tall tree

I have been wondering about a tall tree in Court Recreation Ground for a while now, but yesterday I got around to going to take a closer look, and, as luck would have it, there were some lower branches which were well within reach of my telephone. The trunk was getting on for a couple of feet in diameter at head height and I thought maybe a plane or a lime.

I gave Google Images the snap above, together with the clue: 'From a low branch from the tallest tree in Court Recreation Ground in Epsom. A good bit taller than the mature oaks nearby. Clusters of seeds with wings under the upper branches'.

He does not seem to have much doubt that it is a lime tree of some kind - 'a Large-leaved lime (Tilia platyphyllos) or the Common lime (Tilia x europaea)' -  which I now know can grow taller than oaks.

The tree in question to the left in the snap above, the oaks to the right.

The Google story is consistent with that in Wikipedia, at reference 1 below. And the picture of flowers there is consistent with what I could see from below. So while I would not go to bat for any particular sort of lime, lime will do for identification for now.

PS 1: the snap at the head of this snap took a while. As is all too often the case, a breeze sprang up as I approached with my telephone. Shy trees or what?

PS 2: the close of reference 1 caught my eye:

'Tilia wood is used for carving, and almost all parts of the tree can be used for fodder, ropes or firewood. Bast and honey, which were historically the main products of Tilia, may have been an important factor in the spread of the species and its status as a typical agroforestry tree in the Middle Ages...'.

From where I associate to the similarly versatile Western Red Cedar of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Of recent interest and to be found, inter alia, in the ceiling screening at London Bridge Station.

But I wonder whether the Wikipedian has overdone the importance of the honey: is honey really a sufficient reason to be planting large trees? Which honey, however, Bing/Copilot knows all about.

PS 3: MSN tells me that 'Nigel Farage vows to evict all foreign nationals from social housing'. Whatever is our green and pleasant land coming too? We can't dump all the blame on POTUS and his Magans for legitimising this sort of talk.

PS 4: and while honey is in mind, there is the matter of the honey from the roof of the UBS building in Bishopsgate. We had thought of a superannuated doorman, living in a hut on said roof, tending the bees, something in the way of one of those fake hermits, sometimes used to decorate the grounds of stately homes, but this is quite wrong. Tending the bees has been contracted out to the people at reference 2, who appear to be strong in North America, but who are a bit coy about where they come from. Presumably nothing to do with the French biotechnology company of the same name.

But Gemini is on the case. A Canadian outfit which projects an allotment, hobby beekeeper image.

'... They essentially operate like a tech-enabled facility management company—just with bees instead of HVAC systems. This corporate, scaled-up approach is exactly why their public branding focuses heavily on localized sustainability narratives rather than their central corporate structure'.

Gemini's close.

I don't think that I would catch out by checking any of this. But there is the matter of honey hygiene. How carefully do alvéole clean down the machinery between batches? Can you be sure that you are eating USB honey from No.1 Gracechurch Street (or wherever), not Deutsche Bank honey from No.1 Cheapside, down the road? Or, heaven forfend, from Credit Suisse? Maybe I should check how many bees an acre of prime City can support: it is not as if it is all a field of clover, or even of lime trees, the greened moat of the Tower of London notwithstanding.

Maybe we should get DNV to do an audit? Last noticed getting on for five years ago at reference 4. The usual management consultant charge sheet would, of course, be applicable.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilia_platyphyllos.

Reference 2: https://www.alveole.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.dnv.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/facts-not-opinions.html.

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