After reading The Cloudspotter's Guide, I started taking more notice of clouds (which London skies are seldom without). Since I took up beekeeping, I look more carefully at bee-like flying insects: that is how I recently realised that a "bee" I photographed on a trek 8 years ago was in fact a hoverfly exhibiting Batesian mimicry.
In 2010, I summed up my attitude to trees as follows:
I like trees in the abstract, but regrettably, I know little about them. Which is to say, when I see a tree, I appreciatively say to myself, “Ah, a tree,” and I leave it at that. But I can’t help feeling a twinge of envy for people who can spot and identify trees, and who, even while strolling through a city street, sometimes remark upon an unusual tree, or point out a commonplace one and mention some interesting attribute.This state of affairs persisted more or less unchanged until last month. Then, inspired by some tree identification walks and lectures I attended during London Tree Week, I decided to educate myself. Accordingly, in the last couple of weeks I have been skiving off work for an hour or two in the afternoon, trying to identify trees around our university campus with the help of a field guide.
A short walk from our campus is a street called India Place. I have been there many times, as it is home to the High Commission of India in London, so I cannot have failed to see the two handsome trees at its northern end.
Only today did I really notice them. I was also able to identify the species: Koelreuteria paniculata – common name: Pride of India.
I felt like I had stumbled upon an anonymous town-planner's Easter egg. Happy solstice, everyone!
