2011 : A432 Fishponds Road, Upper Eastville

Image: © Maurice Pullin Taken: 2 May 2011

Heading north east toward Fishponds and Downend. The corner shop with the yellow frontage is at the end of Ridgeway Road. The trees are London planes, planted around 1900. They lose their bark in patches each year, at one time it was an annual event for concerned persons to write letters to the local papers complaining of "vandals stripping the bark and why do the police do nothing about it." The following is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_plane "The London plane is very tolerant of atmospheric pollution and root compaction, and for this reason it is a popular urban roadside tree." and "The London Plane is a large deciduous tree growing to 20–35 m (exceptionally over 40 m) tall, with a trunk up to 3 m or more in circumference. The bark is usually pale grey-green, smooth and exfoliating, or buff-brown and not exfoliating. The leaves are thick and stiff-textured, broad, palmately lobed, superficially maple-like, the leaf blade 10–20 cm long and 12–25 cm broad, with a petiole 3–10 cm long. The young leaves in spring are coated with minute, fine, stiff hairs at first, but these wear off and by late summer the leaves are hairless or nearly so. The flowers are borne in one to three (most often two) dense spherical inflorescences on a pendulous stem, with male and female flowers on separate stems. The fruit matures in about 6 months, to 2–3 cm diameter, and comprises a dense spherical cluster of achenes with numerous stiff hairs which aid wind dispersal; the cluster breaks up slowly over the winter to release the numerous 2–3 mm seeds."

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