Conkers Gallor

Horse Chestnut.  Photo. John Elliott Click to enlarge.

 The unusually hot summer we have had has led to abundant crops of fruit, berries, nuts, - and conkers.

The Horse Chestnut outside my bedroom window has the heaviest crop of conkers that I can remember in the nearly fifty years I have lived here. A few have already fallen or, in the case of the low hanging ones, been picked by passers by. These however, once opened, reveal rather small conkers which won't be much use for playing 'conkers' (are children allowed top lay such 'dangerous' games these days?)  Elderly ladies also gather them as they are believed to scare spiders, though I must say they don't seem to make much difference in my summer house. Most of the brown colouration of the leaves is not the normal autumn change but due to the action of the larvae of the Horse Chestnut Leaf Miner moth This is a fairly recent arrival in this country which at first was not thought to do much damage to the tree, but it does seem to get worse with the passage of time, and is now covering a large percentage of the leaf area and restricting the area of the vital green chlorophyll. Smaller patches of brown are due to a fungus, Chestnut Blight, another recent arrival,which has caused large losses of Chestnut trees in America.

The Hazel bush next to the Horse Chestnut has also yielded many nuts, but the Squirrel from across the road is beating me to it.