Alder

Alder is common throughout Scotland, found in damp places in all areas. It grows on wet slopes and by hill burns, by rivers and lochs, and in bogs and mires. In some low-lying places the trunk may be more than a metre across at base, often with many young shoots from the base, and tapering to a spreading crown at over twenty metres in height . Many alders are short and bushy, sometimes because of natural conditions, sometimes as a result of cutting or coppicing. Many kinds of tree re-grow from the stump when the trunk – in Gaelic ‘stoc’– is cut, sending up several new stems. The trunk of Alder is dark grey/brown, smooth but lined on young specimens, and cracked and fissured on older. Twigs are dark maroon brown, and buds are a pale, filmy purple. The male and female flower buds are noticeable all Winter - dark maroon male catkins and little dark maroon female flower buds, both on the same tree. The female flower buds, having been pollinated by the growing crimson male catkins, become green and swell, becoming little woody cones during the year, from which the seeds fall. The cones remain on the tree for a long time, and if they fall into water they float, carrying any remaining seed downstream. Alder seeds are eaten by fish and frogs, otters and water-shrews. The dark glossy leaves appear in late April or early May, fresh green but sometimes deep glossy maroon at first, growing round and deeply-veined and wavy-edged, sometimes as big as a small plate on the lower shoots. The timber when cut – in Gaelic ‘crann’, or ‘fiog’ - is orange and finely-grained – once known as Scotch Mahogany. It has been used for bridge piles and clogs and other items needing to be tolerant of constant wet, and also makes high quality charcoal – in Gaelic ‘fiodh-ghual’. An Alder Wood is a rich and verdant place, with an abundance of wild flowers and herbs the ground enriched by the action of underground nodules on the soft orange roots of the tree, that attract nitrogen into the soil. In legend the Alder Wood is also a place of secrecy and refuge, dark under the dark foliage, the dark bushy trunks reflected in the dark pools. Many centuries ago, in the Alder woods of Argyll, the eloping lovers Diarmid and Grainne hid from the warrior-bands of an enraged Irish King, in places like Alltfearna – Gaelic for ‘Alder Stream’. Other Gaelic place names are Fearn in Easter Ross, and Fearnach in Perthshire.