Stanmore Common Nature Trail
Short trail post 5: This large tree is a Turkey oak, Quercus cerris. It comes from Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans. It was introduced into the UK in the 1700's. One can identify it by the deeply indented leaves and the hairs that surround its buds and acorn cups. It does not have as great a range of invertebrates as our two native oaks; pedunculate oak Quercus robor, the commonest native oak on the reserve, and sessile oak Quercus petraea which is only found in the far north west edge of Stanmore Common. We do weed out turkey oak saplings but we keep the magnificent large trees.

Turn right and follow the path downhill. In summer notice the green bottlebrushes of great horsetail Equisetum telmateia. Horsetails contain a lot of silica in their cell walls and this makes the stems very hard and tough. Horsetails used to be used as pot scourers and in burnishing silver.


Image: Great horsetail by Steve Bolsover
To description for short trail post 6

More on some of the birds you are likely to see or hear on the Common

More on the three species of deer on the Common and their tracks

Click here to learn more about the Harrow Nature Conservation Forum including guided walks and conservation workdays.