Tags
Dobgill Wood, fungus, Helvellyn, insects, moss, plants, slime mould, Thirlmere Reservoir, wild flowers
This post marks the return of posts about our holiday in the Lake District in July.
We spent an afternoon at Thirlmere, a reservoir which was created in 1894 to provide water for the city of Manchester.
Thirlmere was originally two smaller lakes and in flooding the valley, the two villages of Amboth and Wythburn were submerged. Many people protested about the construction of the reservoir, the philanthropist John Ruskin being one of them, but theirs’ was a lost cause. The citizens of Manchester’s need of fresh water was thought to have been more important than the loss of a couple of villages and a community’s way of life.
Thirlmere is 3.76 miles long and about half a mile wide. It is surrounded by 2000 acres of coniferous forest, mainly spruce and larch, planted in 1908. More deciduous, native trees are being planted now. There was protest at the planting of the forest because the fells were traditionally tree-less and bare.
We parked our car in one of the car-parks off the road that skirts the lake and then walked down to the lakeside through a pretty wood. It was so green and mossy in that wood!
I think the moss may be Polytrichum commune. I read that it has square capsules with pointed lids. These capsules can be seen if you look carefully at my photo.
We soon got to the lake shore where there was a lot more to see. There were plants living amongst the stones ….
…and plants at the edge of the wood.
This plant tastes and smells like hops and in some areas has been used as a substitute for them.
While they sat and relaxed I wandered about looking for plants and other interesting things.
This rock was covered with many different types of moss and lichen.
We then walked back up to the car-park but by a different route.
We returned to the car-park where we left Elinor to rest but Richard and I continued walking as we wanted to see the Dobgill waterfall. I will include that in a different post.
If anyone sees that I have made any mistakes with my identification I would be really grateful for any corrections. If anyone can identify any of the organisms I have been unable to name, again, I would be very pleased to know.
Thanks for visiting!
Lavinia Ross said:
It still looks so beautiful and lush where you are! The realm of ferns, mosses and lichens is an endless one to explore.
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you Lavinia! Yes, you are right. I have so little knowledge about them but find them so beautiful.
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Julie said:
Hi Clare, you might find this link helpful for Lichens http://www.opalexplorenature.org/identification
And a whole host of other tricky to identify things, I love this site. I have printed copies of some of the identification sheets as I can be a bit of a ditherer when it comes to ID’s, its a matter of getting your eye in I am told!
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clarepooley33 said:
Oh Julie! Just what I need! Thank-you so much.
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Jane said:
Oh Clare, this looks like a lovely nature walk – so much lovely greenery and lichens, moss and flowers! Thanks for sharing this beautiful place. I love the small details you’ve noticed. 🙂
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you Jane. It was a wonderful place to visit – very green! I wish I knew more about mosses and lichens. I think I’ll have to invest in yet another ID guide book!
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Jill Weatherholt said:
Your photographs are amazing, Clare. I love the color green and this post explodes with it! Love it!
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you Jill! I love green too so I was in heaven!
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quietsolopursuits said:
What a picturesque area to visit! Everything from wonderful landscapes to the mosses and lichens, with some beautiful flowers as well.
I can understand why the residents of the communities that were flooded were upset, no one wants to lose their home. I’m not sure why they planted trees, unless it was to prevent landslides?
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clarepooley33 said:
Thanks Jerry! Yes, one of the reasons for the tree planting was to stabilise the hillsides. Many of the streams that fed the lakes were re-directed through concrete channels so the land must have looked pretty awful as well. A secondary aim was growing a timber crop. As I said in a former post, Britain only has one native pine tree, the Scots Pine and it has lots of black knots in its wood so not as suitable for cropping as non-native trees. By planting non-natives the UK was saved a lot of money they would have spent on importing timber.
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Gallivanta said:
Are the concrete channels still there?
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clarepooley33 said:
I really couldn’t say. I didn’t see any so either they have got rid of them and let the streams flow down naturally or, which seems more likely to me, they have closed in the channels so the water flows underground. I will have to see if I can find out!
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Gallivanta said:
Hmmm…… it would be a massive job to get rid of the concrete so perhaps they have let it be.
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dobetteralways said:
I want to go to there.
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clarepooley33 said:
It’s very peaceful there. Btw, there has been a fascinating series on TV here over the last couple of weeks about how we develop in the womb. You might be interested.http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06cl24s/countdown-to-life-the-extraordinary-making-of-you-1-the-first-8-weeks
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dobetteralways said:
I will check it out.
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New Hampshire Garden Solutions said:
This is a great place Clare. I’d like to go there myself!
I think your first unidentified grayish lichen is a reindeer lichen (Cladonia) , though I’m not sure which one. Possibly Cladonia rangiferina.
The moss after the large mossy hummock looks like hair cap moss Polytrichum commune.) It could also be Polytrichum juniperinum.
I think the Pseudocleropodium purum and Thuidium tamariscinum identifications are good ones, but mosses can change so much between their wet and dry states that it can be difficult.
I think the lichen where you say for a change is one of the cladonia lichens. It’s a big family that includes pixie cups, British soldiers, and powder horns.
The shot of the fern spore cases is excellent but my favorite of all is the maidenhair spleenwort. If you only knew how many years I’ve looked for one of them!
Great post!
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you so much Allen! I am really grateful for your help. I had never seen most of these mosses before and the maidenhair spleenwort was a real find!
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tootlepedal said:
You certainly didn’t waste any time on your outing. What a lot you saw.
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you! Moss over-load I’m afraid!
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greytabby1 said:
Clare – This was such a wonderful visit. Goodness you have so much knowledge about plants, mosses and lichens. It really is a beautiful and peaceful spot but also one which has a sad and controversial history because of the communities destroyed. Beautiful photos and descriptions. Well done!
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you very much! I don’t know as much as it looks – I do lots of research before posting just to make sure I have the right ID. There are so many lovely people on-line who are happy to advise me if I can’t find out on my own. Dam building is a very controversial business. Fresh water is needed in the towns and cities but at a cost.
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Gallivanta said:
It may not have been a popular decision at the time but the area created by the dam is beautiful.
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you Ann. This is what we thought while we were there. Now that the place has settled down and the scars don’t show any more it is really lovely there. Because there aren’t all the tourist boats on the reservoir like there are on most of the other lakes and because there aren’t hotels and towns close by it seemed so secluded and the plantlife was so lush.
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Gallivanta said:
The plant life is incredibly lush. I couldn’t believe the size of the bracken.
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clarepooley33 said:
The bracken was very tall – my daughter is 5′ 6″ and it was slightly taller than her. They can grow up to 2.5 m (8′ 2″) tall which is quite amazing. I haven’t seen any that tall.
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Gallivanta said:
I remember reading stories (possibly Enid Blyton) about bracken being used for bedding when camping, so I have always wondered about bracken.
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clarepooley33 said:
My father was a scout master and we often went on camps with him when we (my brother and sister) were young. The scouts were often asked to make bivouacs and as we usually camped near heathland the boys gathered armfuls of bracken to go in their woven shelters. It is carcinogenic but I don’t think we were aware of that 50 years ago!
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Gallivanta said:
I certainly didn’t know that!
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Orts and Gribbles said:
Beautiful photos and I really like how you include a bit of information about the plants. I’m learning a lot!
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you! 🙂
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lundygirl said:
Bracken always makes me think of Bradgate Park in Leicestershire. We used to go there a lot when I was little and my sister and I would launch ourselves into the bracken. It was a lot of fun!
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clarepooley33 said:
It’s wonderful stuff and I love the smell of it too. We had lots of camping holidays near heathland when I was small and there was always plenty of bracken to play in there.
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-yo very much!
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clarepooley33 said:
Thank-you so much! I apologise for taking so long to acknowledge your kind comment.
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