Bluebells

My mother and I have come to see bluebells. It is a grey day  but we came  as soon as the rain stopped. The heavy scent of  bird cherry flows over me as we walk through the gate into the nature reserve. It is a surprising perfume from such delicate white flowers but they are exuberant shrubs, smothered in froths of white. Wayland wood is ancient woodland known to date back to medieval times. Its use over centuries along with the Wildlife Trust’s  conservation efforts  mean that bluebells still flourish here.

The British Bluebell, Hyacinthoides non scripta is under  attack, despite the fact that it has been voted the favourite wildflower by the British public many times. Pictures of broadleaf woodland carpeted with smoky blue flowers are seen as quintessentially English countryside but such scenes are becoming depictions of nostalgia rather than reality.

They were an integral part of my childhood and adolescence. I would walk for miles with my father through woods filled with the scent of bluebells, primroses, violets and delicate nodding white wood anemones. The Dingle wood was within walking distance and we were free to roam as children. It was possible to walk for hours  without coming across a road. The M6 was built to cut across the land during my childhood but even that didn’t have much impact on the extent of the woodlands.

When I was a little older my friends and I would cycle to Squire Anderton’s Wood. A clear stream ran through the bluebell filled beech woods where we could paddle  and jump across stones to work up an appetite for our picnic under the shade of the trees.

I associate bluebells with my birthday. My tenth birthday was spent in Scotland on a school trip. There were two woods within walking distance  of the holiday camp and the floor of one shimmered pale lilac blue. The other was carpeted pink with the tiny star flowers of Claytonia Sybirica. I have tried to grow these in my East Anglian wooded garden but it is too dry for them here.

 I can recall the scent of soft earth, new sweet foliage  and bluebells when I went to the woods with my first boyfriend on my fourteenth birthday. My eighteenth birthday memory is of walking hand in hand through a bluebell wood with another boyfriend. I wore a blue and white checked dress and shoes which I had dyed navy. The dye washed off in the wetness of the woods leaving blue and white shoes rather less regularly patterned than the dress. My birthday is at the end of May and I lived in the North of England. Here in the East bluebells bloom in April. The difference is partly due to the fact that spring arrives later the further North you travel and partly due to global warming. That is part of the threat to our favourite flower. Climate change is moving their habitat further north. It is not the only threat we humans have  launched.

We all used to gather armfuls of flowers to take home, trying to capture a little of the spring, only to have them die in their vases. Those predations did not help them thrive but had little impact compared to other human activities.

The sale of wild bulbs has been particularly harmful to bluebells. It is now illegal but unscrupulous traders have already done much damage. Here in Norfolk I visited a site known for wild snowdrops one year. The following year they had all been dug up. Snowdrops, like bluebells, grow best when planted “in the green.” The earth looked as though the surface had been scraped off taking the bulbs with it.

The popularity of British bluebells is a strength as public awareness is helping protect them and numerous projects throughout the country mean that legally grown native grown bluebells are being planted in the wild. Bulbs are also being created by chipping to try and develop a sustainable source and they are being replanted too. Sale from cultivated stock is still possible but there are suggestions  that if they were removed from sale altogether it could prevent rogue traders.

The most significant problem has been loss of ancient woodland. The M6 was only the first step in the march of development over that landscape  of my youth. Superstores and houses stretch across the hillsides now. In the drier  East of England bluebells are more or less confined to broadleaved woodland where there is shade. In the West and areas of higher rainfall, they can grow in the open away from tree cover, but woodland is still the main home of the British Bluebell.

Oliver Rackham ,the guru of ancient woodlands, suggests that since 1800 destruction has been linked to the cycles of the modern economy. First came the growth of the railways, then a short lived agricultural boom in 1840, but the greatest threats to  have been the changes to farming methods after 1945 which he refers to as the “Locust Years” when vast areas of woodlands and hedgerows disappeared.

Woods used to be coppiced. When trees such as ash and elm and hazel are cut down to ground level they regrow, producing many shoots which in the past were used for fences, firewood, charcoal, bows, faggots, animal fodder. The cycle of cutting and regrowth ensured continuous supply and enabled ground flora such as bluebells to thrive.

As my mother and I walk through the wood today there is an open area where the trees have been cut down to about a foot leaving the ground exposed. All plants need light, even those we associate with shaded woods. They take their opportunities before the trees grow their leaves. The dappled shade created by coppiced woodland produces our visions of what ideal woods look like. There are few trades which use wood now and their disappearance means that coppicing is rare. It is the most favourable habitat for  woodland ground species. The land where we are walking is owned by the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and they are  using coppicing to maintain this small piece of  habitat. Their success is clear. Flowers are everywhere.

Thetford forest, where I walk each day, was  planted for timber. Conifers do not encourage the growth of ground flora nor do beech trees. Both have canopies which do not allow enough light for many flowers to grow. Since there were no existing woodland flora, there are none  that could regrow even with the present enlightened management.

Humans were not the only ones to create woodland habitat suitable for bluebells in the past. Deer played their part too. In fact, ancient forests were heavily  protected to enable the king and noblemen to hunt the deer.

Deer eat new trees and coppiced shoots. Too many deer change the structure and species composition of woodland vegetation and destroy ground flora. On the other hand  there are more varieties  of young trees and shrubs when there are some deer present, but at low densities. It is all a question of balance but we do not know the exact level and control is  impossible on a large scale. Native deer such as the roe and red deer have always lived in our woods. The delightful looking Muntjac, the Barking deer, an introduced species, is thriving now. Despite its soft brown eyes it is a voracious predator. My attempts to grow tulips for picking have failed for many years as the pretty little creatures invade my garden for snacks every spring.Plants can recover given the opportunity but it is difficult to reduce deer density. Not only do they enjoy bluebells and other flowers but also young trees and coppice regrowth. Planting trees seems to have become a national pastime but efforts to restore woodlands will need to include ways of keeping deer at lower levels than they are at present.

Hunting was not only for sport in the past. Venison was the food of Kings and nobles.  It is still sold, especially in areas like East Anglia where game of all kinds is normal fare. It is low in cholesterol and the animals live much better lives than  those bred for factory farmed meat. I doubt if MacDonalds would ever sell Bambi Burgers but marketing venison could help keep bluebells and their homes. I have noticed that it is even on sale in Sainsburies now but  I don’t know if this is only local. Maybe  Jennifer Aldridge from the Archers  selling venison at Farmers markets is helping to make it sound a more attractive food.

Muntjac are not the only introduced species which are a danger to our bluebells. There is a much less evident enemy. It is more than three hundred years since Spanish bluebells Hyancinthoides Hispanica became established in British gardens. It is difficult to envisage the sturdy blue flowers displayed on bulb packets on garden centre shelves as Aliens, but they are defined as Alien Invasive Species. They get on so well with their British kin that  hybridisation between the two is rampant. Since Great Britain is home to 50% of the world’s Hyanythoides non scripta population we are obliged to protect the native species.

Ten years ago more than two thousand people took part in a survey of bluebells throughout Britain survey. They found that hybrids have become more common than either of their parents and it is often impossible to distinguish them. Both species spread when they are introduced to new habitats and they hybridise wherever they meet. Only here in the UK have hybrids themselves started invading new territory in the absence of either parent. It is possible that this  form of adaptation may be the only way  bluebells can ensure their own long term survival in the face of the major threat of climate change. In broadleaved woodlands the native bluebell still reigns but that habitat is still under threat and is itself likely to change in response to climate change.  I have planted hundreds of certified British bluebells “ in the green” but my garden is now full of hybrids. I wonder if hybridisation is the bluebells’ way of surviving; evolution in action. Like many other species the British bluebell may become extinct or it may only survive in controlled conditions such as Wayland wood or even seed banks. Scotland may be its final home. Research  carried out there  suggested,

 “The hybrid has proved itself capable of considerable naturalisation and spread. If its evident progress is set to continue, ancient woodlands such as the Atlantic oakwoods in Scotland could become refuges for the British bluebell in the UK.”

Despite frantic planting of native woodland and hedgerow and attempts to recreate whole woodland communities, such habitats are far more complex than we are able to understand. Our creativity is not as limitless as human hubris would suggest.

As we walk through the wood admiring the bluebells, early purple orchids, yellow archangel, wood anemones and the deep blue spikes of bugle, we remember and record their beauty. My mother and I feel deprived if we do not see tracts of wild bluebells in bloom every spring. My mother is ninety one, I’m sure the native  bluebells will be continue to be around during her lifetime. I’m not so sure they will survive through my own.