I am looking forward to seeing this tree with the leaves fully extended and the buds open. It was in the small local nature reserve in the village. I think it is a Wayfaring tree. It didn’t really look like a wild plant to me. I wondered why. I looked up its scientific name – Viburnum lantana. Then I realised that it has similarities to the Viburnum shrubs that are more familiar to me growing in gardens.
Jessica's Nature Blog 
Thanks for identifying. My version has a reddish brown and doesn’t look really fresh. So I decided to wait for the buds to open.
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As with most things, I am not absolutely certain of identifications but the leaves are very distinctive. I am using the Collins complete guide to British Trees 2007 ISBN 978-0-00-723685-5. With most of the trees I have been photographing, I will have to wait until the leaves are fully out before knowing what they are. For the most common trees I use the Forestry Commission Booklet No. 20 Know Your Broadleaves (Edlin & Darter), HMSO 1968. This is very detailed and gives illustrations of the flowers too.
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As I clicked on the link, I was thinking I would be setting off to look at the very familiar; plants I’d see daily on my own walks in good old Dorset. But this tree is new to me! (Still pleased to see it though.)
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I think the weeks when the leaves are coming out are my favourite ones – I really love the colour of fresh new leaves too!
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I love the name. Wayfaring tree.
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Hello, Lucy. So nice to hear from you. This tree really doesn’t look wild and natural does it? But it is. I have never noticed it anywhere else. It has obviously been planted in the little local nature reserve. It will have clusters of white flowers in a short while and red berries in autumn.
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Dear Emma, Some of the new growth on trees is truly wonderful, golden translucent greens and vivid reds in opening leaf and flower buds. When the light shines at the right angle or when silhouetted against the sky they seem to glow and vibrate with energy.
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Apparently it gets the name wayfaring-tree from the fact that it tends to grow in hedgerows beside paths and roads; and its distinctive leaves, bunches of white flowers, and bright red berries in autumn seemed to show the way home for travellers.
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Those ae wonderful photographs,Thank you, Jessica
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I love that story. It is very touching to think of the traveller coming home. And I also like the observing nature of the unknown people who gave it the name, noticing its habits through the seasons, to pass it down to us today.
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That’s OK, Emma. Just thought I would bring a bit of the outside indoors for you.
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Thanks, Claudia. In the past people were, of necessity, far more attuned to the natural world than we tend to be today.
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Yes. We notice what we need to survive and these days it’s not usually the natural world. Unless maybe you are me and wander around a lot outside, as I think you do too. Even then it can be easy to overlook things. It seems to take a certain kind of patience and long acquaintance with a specific location, maybe.
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It is true, Claudia, that even with a habit of wandering outside, and taking in the details, it is still possible to miss things from being too focussed on something else. It is definitely helping me to be more observant and more aware now that I am covering the same ground every day in a very restricted range.
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I have been taking walks in my neighborhood, something I used to do a lot but then switched over to going to various parks and so on. Now we stay more local and I am revisiting sites I have been familiar with for decades and seeing new things in them. Which I like and I wonder why I did not do it before.
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I have been taking the opportunity to look back at the photos I have taken in earlier years of the area where I live, and I am surprised that in springtime I have been visiting elsewhere a great deal and not enjoying my own neighbourhood as much as I might have.
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