Clayfield Copse
Clayfield Copse is a local nature reserve on the northern edge of the suburb of Caversham in Reading, UK. The site is in size and is a natural open space consisting of fields, wild flower meadow and native woodlands adjoining the Oxfordshire countryside. Some of the woodland is being actively managed as hazel coppice, and traditional dead hedging defines some of the ancient woodland areas. The site is the only outcrop of London Clay north of the River Thames in Reading and makes up the southern tip of the Chiltern Hills. The nature reserve is under the management of the Reading Borough Council. The site also features a sculpture trail. History Clayfield Copse used to be part of the country house estate of Caversham Park. In 1991, the site was designated a local nature reserve, making it Reading's first such reserve. Fauna The site has the following fauna: Birds *Picus viridis *Eurasian golden oriole Flora The site has the following flora: Trees Plants Fungi *Daldinia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eurasian Golden Oriole
The Eurasian golden oriole (''Oriolus oriolus'') also called the common golden oriole, is the only member of the Old World oriole family of passerine birds breeding in Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. It is a summer bird migration, migrant in Europe and Palearctic and spends the winter season in central and southern Africa. Golden orioles have an extremely large range with large populations that are apparently stable. Therefore, they are evaluated as least concern by BirdLife International. Taxonomy and systematics The Eurasian golden oriole was Species description, described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, tenth edition of his ''Systema Naturae'' and given the binomial name ''Coracias oriolus''. The Eurasian golden oriole and the Indian golden oriole were formerly considered as conspecific, but in 2005 they were treated as separate species by the ornithologists Pamela C. Rasmussen, Pamela Rasmussen and John Anderton, in the first edition o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ranunculus Auricomus
''Ranunculus auricomus'', known as goldilocks buttercup or Greenland buttercup, is a perennial species of buttercup native to Eurasia. It is a calcicole typically found in moist woods and at the margins of woods. It is apomictic, and several hundred agamospecies have been recognised. Description ''Ranunculus auricomus'' is a short and slightly hairy perennial herb with bright yellow flowers. It can reach a height between 30–, and have as many as 10 palmately-lobed basal leaves. Its upper stem leaves are deeply divided into 3-5 narrow segments giving the plant a filiform appearance. Its flowers are frequently imperfect or missing, making it difficult to identify ''Ranunculus auricomus'' by flowers alone. Distribution ''Ranunculus auricomus'' is native to northern Europe and western Asia, approximately from latitudes 43 to 71 degrees and from western Ireland to the Ural Mountains. In Britain it is generally a lowland species but has been recorded at on Aonach Beag. It is common ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anemone Nemorosa
''Anemonoides nemorosa'' (syn. ''Anemone nemorosa''), the wood anemone, is an early-spring flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to Europe. Other common names include windflower, European thimbleweed, and smell fox, an allusion to the musky smell of the leaves. It is a perennial herbaceous plant growing tall. Description ''Anemonoides nemorosa'' is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant less than in height. The compound basal leaves are palmate or ternate (divided into three lobes). They grow from underground root-like stems called rhizomes and die back down by mid summer (summer dormant). The plants start blooming in spring, March to May in the British Isles soon after the foliage emerges from the ground. The flowers are solitary, held above the foliage on short stems, with a whorl of three palmate or palmately-lobed leaflike bracts beneath. The flowers are diameter, with six or seven (and on rare occasions eight to ten) tepals (petal-like segments) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carpinus Betulus
''Carpinus betulus'', the European or common hornbeam, is a species of tree in the birch family Betulaceae, native to Western Asia and central, eastern, and southern Europe, including southern England. It requires a warm climate for good growth, and occurs only at elevations up to . It grows in mixed stands with oak, and in some areas beech, and is also a common tree in scree forests. Hornbeam was also known as 'Yoke Elm'. Description It is a deciduous small to medium-size tree reaching heights of , rarely , and often has a fluted and crooked trunk. The bark is smooth and greenish-grey, even in old trees. The buds, unlike those of the beech, are long at the most, and pressed close to the twig. The leaves are alternate, long, with prominent veins giving a distinctive corrugated texture, and a serrated margin. It is monoecious, and the wind-pollinated male and female catkins appear in early summer after the leaves. The fruit is a small long nut, partially surrounded by a thre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Betula Pendula
''Betula pendula'', commonly known as silver birch, warty birch, European white birch, or East Asian white birch, is a species of tree in the family Betulaceae, native to Europe and parts of Asia, though in southern Europe, it is only found at higher altitudes. Its range extends into Siberia, China, and southwest Asia in the mountains of northern Turkey, the Caucasus, and northern Iran. It has been introduced into North America, where it is known as the European white birch or weeping birch and is considered invasive in some states in the United States and parts of Canada. The tree can also be found in more temperate regions of Australia. The silver birch is a medium-sized deciduous tree that owes its common name to the white peeling bark on the trunk. The twigs are slender and often pendulous and the leaves are roughly triangular with doubly serrate margins and turn yellow and brown in autumn before they fall. The flowers are catkins and the light, winged seeds get widely sc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Corylus Avellana
''Corylus avellana'', the common hazel, is a species of flowering plant in the birch family Betulaceae. It is native to Europe and western Asia. It is an important component of the hedgerows that were the traditional field boundaries in lowland England. The wood was traditionally grown as coppice, the poles cut being used for wattle-and-daub building and agricultural fencing. Common hazel is cultivated for its nuts. The name hazelnut applies to the nuts of any species in the genus ''Corylus'', but in commercial settings a hazelnut is usually that of ''C. avellana''. This hazelnut or cob nut, the kernel of the seed, is edible and used raw or roasted, or ground into a paste. The cob is round, compared with the longer filbert nut. Description Common hazel is typically a shrub reaching tall, but can reach . The leaves are deciduous, rounded, long and across, softly hairy on both surfaces, and with a double-serrate margin. The flowers are produced very early in spring, before ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sorbus Torminalis
''Sorbus torminalis'', with common names wild service tree, chequers, and checker tree, is a species of tree in the mountain Fraxinus, ash or rowan genus (''Sorbus'') of the rose family (Rosaceae), that is native to Europe, parts of northern Africa and western Asia. Description It is a medium-sized deciduous tree growing to tall, with a trunk up to in diameter. The Bark (botany), bark is smooth and grayish, but flaky, peeling away in squarish plates to reveal darker brown layers. The leaves are long and broad with a petiole, dark green on both sides, with five to nine acute lobes; the basal pair of lobes are spreading, the rest more forward-pointing and decreasing in size to the leaf apex, and with finely toothed margins; the undersides have small hairs when young, but both sides are smooth and shiny when older; the autumn colour is yellow to red-brown. The flowers are in diameter, with five white petals and 20 creamy-white stamens; they are produced in corymbs diameter in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sorbus Aucuparia
''Sorbus aucuparia'', commonly called rowan (UK: /ˈrəʊən/, US: /ˈroʊən/) and mountain-ash, is a species of deciduous tree or shrub in the rose family. It is a highly variable species, and botanists have used different Circumscription (taxonomy), definitions of the species to include or exclude trees native to certain areas; a recent definition includes trees native to most of Europe and parts of Asia, as well as northern Africa. The range extends from Madeira, the British Isles and Iceland to Russia and northern China. Unlike many plants with similar distributions, it is not native to Japan. The tree has a slender trunk with smooth bark, a loose and roundish crown, and its leaves are pinnate in pairs of leaflets on a central vein with a terminal leaflet. It blossoms from May to June in dense corymbs of small yellowish white flowers and develops small red pomes as fruit that ripen from August to October and are eaten by many bird species. The plant is undemanding and frost h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prunus Spinosa
''Prunus spinosa'', called blackthorn or sloe, is a species of flowering plant in the rose family Rosaceae. The species is native to Europe, western Asia, and regionally in northwest Africa. It is locally naturalized in New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Spain. The wood is used to make walking sticks, including the Irish shillelagh. Description ''Prunus spinosa'' is a large deciduous shrub or small tree growing to tall, with blackish bark and dense, stiff, spiny branches. The leaves are oval, long and broad, with a serrated margin. The flowers are about in diameter, with five creamy-white petals; they are produced shortly before the leaves in early spring, and are hermaphroditic, and insect-pollinated. The fruit, called a "sloe", is a drupe in diameter, black with a purple-blue waxy bloom, ripening in autumn and traditionally harvested – at lea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pyrus Pyraster
''Pyrus pyraster'' ( syn. ''Pyrus communis subsp. pyraster''), also called European wild pear, is a species of pear of the family Rosaceae. This wild pear and ''Pyrus caucasica'' (syn. ''P. communis'' subsp. ''caucasica'') are thought to be the ancestors of the cultivated European pear (''Pyrus communis'' subsp. ''communis''). Both the wild pears are interfertile with domesticated pears. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish ''Pyrus pyraster'' from a common pear. ''Pyrus pyraster'' can reach an age of 100 to 150 years. Description ''Pyrus pyraster'' is a deciduous plant reaching in height as medium-sized shrub and as a tree.Pignatti S. - Flora d'Italia – Edagricole – 1982. Vol. I, pag. 603 Unlike the cultivated form the branches have thorns. The leaves are ovate with serrated margins. The flowers have white petals. The stamens are equal to the length of styles. The flowering period extends from April through May. The fruits reach in diameter and ripen in late s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prunus Avium
''Prunus avium'', commonly called wild cherry, sweet cherry, gean, or bird cherryWorld Economic Plants: A Standard Reference, Second Edition'. CRC Press; 19 April 2016. . p. 833–. is a species of cherry, a flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is native to Europe, Anatolia, Maghreb, and Western Asia, from the British Isles south to Morocco and Tunisia, north to the Trondheimsfjord region in Norway and east to the Caucasus and northern Iran, with a small isolated population in the western Himalaya.Den Virtuella Floran''Prunus avium''(in Swedish; witmap The species is widely cultivated in other regions and has become naturalized in North America and Australia. ''Prunus avium'' has a diploid set of sixteen chromosomes (2''n'' = 16). All parts of the plant except for the ripe fruit are slightly toxic, containing cyanogenic glycosides. Description ''Prunus avium'' is a deciduous tree growing to tall, with a trunk up to in diameter. Young trees show strong ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |