#71 Alder by Dwayne Martindale

Meet Dwayne Martindale, Wild Ingleborough Project Assistant!

Alder in situ by a river (c) Rob Bailey

As project assistant, Dwayne’s role is to support the Wild Ingleborough program on the ground and on reserves, including dry stone walling, fencing, tree planting and leading volunteers on practical conservation tasks. The role also includes assisting the engagement program to educate and inspire visiting groups and locals and helping out with the research and monitoring of the Wild Ingleborough program’s outcomes and successes.
Email – Dwayne.martindale@ywt.org.uk
Website - www.wildingleborough.com
Instagram - @d_thewildman

Dwayne’s chosen species is Alder Alnus glutinosa. Alder is a wonderful tree that is native to the UK and one that the Wild Ingleborough Programme is planting out among many others, in various reserve areas that make up Wild Ingleborough. It is a species that is not immediately striking in stature, nor the most useful in terms of timber, but one that Dwayne has come to get to know over the years as a crooked, purple tinged pioneer of wetlands and riverbanks. It just so happens to be his personal favourite tree; one he has seen quickly establish and thrive in areas where most other species could not.

Getting to know the Alder

Once you ‘get your eye in’ for the Alder there’s no mistaking it for any other tree, and you soon start to recognise them from near and afar, in winter and in summer. Alder trees prefer wet, damp habitats and so their presence in an area should give you some immediate clues about the habitat it is growing in. It is very likely to be close to water, perhaps a riverbank or flood plain, or maybe an area of upland that gets high rainfall or waterlogged soil.

As a young, budding shoot, the Alder has a light orange hue to its stalk with small pimply nodules on it, contrasting beautifully with its pastel, lilac coloured leaf buds. The purple buds are one of Dwayne’s favourite features and one that is a useful ID clue in winter.

As the tree matures, its trunk becomes deeply fissured and rough. Its branches are often gnarly as it bends over the riverbank, its bark turns darker, and hosts tree loving lichens as it grows. When allowed to grow in an open area, the Alder canopy grows into a very distinctive cone shape silhouette. It has large and glossy green leaves that are roughly heart shaped and produces male and female catkins; the female ones are like ‘lamb’s tails’ (similar to Hazel), and the male catkins are like miniature pine cones that start green but turn hard after pollination. Look out for the small, woody cones in the twigs and on the floor - they are a great identification feature, as Alder is the only broadleaved tree to produce cones like this.

Alder with catkins, photo taken in February (c) Rob Bailey

Alder’s history

If you look at a map of the Dales or other areas of England that were settled by the Norse and Danes during the Viking Era, you may occasionally come across the place name, ‘Eller’. Indeed, if you look around Chapel-le-Dale and Ribblesdale which flank Wild Ingleborough you will see ‘Ellerbeck,’ ‘Ellerbeck Pasture’ and ‘Ashes Eller Bank’ - the latter forms part of a drumlin within YWT Ashes Pasture.

‘Eller’, is the Old Norse term for Alder, and seeing the words Alder or Eller in any place is a clue that if there aren’t Alder trees there now, there probably were when it was named! This is a useful word to know to give us clues of historic habitats and gives us a positive indication that planting Alder in areas named after it can result in an established wet woodland habitat. ‘Eller’, is where the Alder wants to be!

It was mentioned earlier that Alder timber is not the most useful, but one use that Alder has seen for thousands of years is its ability to make good charcoal, a crucial fuel in the past. It is not hard to imagine the ancient people who lived around Ingleborough going down to the banks of the Ribble to cut and coppice the Alder for fuel.

Alder’s influence

At Wild Ingleborough, the team want to introduce trees to key areas not only to increase the tree cover in the Dales, but to benefit wildlife as a whole. As a wetland pioneering tree, Alder has numerous benefits to a range of organisms.

Introducing the Alder to bare ground gives structure to the terrain with the stems, acting like scaffolds that mosses, lichens and liverworts can use to grow up and around. The catkins produce pollen and nectar when in their flowering stage which helps bees and invertebrates survive in the months when resources are scarce. When in seed, the catkins will provide food for seed-eating birds like the finches, especially the Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis).

There are also several species of moths which use Alder as their foodplant for their caterpillars, particularly the Alder kitten moth (Furcula bicuspis). A shiny metallic blue beetle called the Alder leaf beetle (Agelastica alni) can often be found feeding on the foliage of Alders, sometimes in big numbers, leaving telltale holes in the leaves.

This pioneer of a tree is well adapted to seed into bare and soggy ground where no other trees are growing and begin to create habitable conditions for the next generation of incoming trees to establish. It does this by ‘fixing’ nitrogen into the soil with the help of a bacterium called Frankia alni which is able to absorb nitrogen from the air so that the tree can use it. In return, the Alder trades the nitrogen for sugars which it produces through photosynthesis, and because of this mutually beneficial relationship it increases the fertility of the soil to enable more trees to succeed in the future.

Alder leaves and catkins in October (c) Rob Bailey

Through Wild Ingleborough’s tree monitoring of planted trees from previous seasons, they have found that Alder seems to be targeted by deer browsing much less than other species such as Rowan. This may have something to do with the higher levels of tannins in the Alder making it less palatable, which helps trees survive and stand a better chance of reaching maturity.

Dwayne hopes that this blog has informed you of the various good reasons to plant this remarkable tree, at Wild Ingleborough and beyond, and the cascading benefits nature will use to become resilient in the face of increasing challenges for nature in the Dales.

Recording and monitoring

The new alder trees that are planted as part of the Wild Ingleborough program are actively monitored for survival rate, signs of browsing activity, height gain and natural regeneration. See the Wild Ingleborough website for more information:  www.wildingleborough.com.

Further information and acknowledgements

NEYEDC would like to thank Dwayne for his time and expertise in helping to create this blog.