This birch was growing by an old broken-down stone wall at the edge of some woodland that I surveyed for mosses and liverworts. It is dark for a birch, though to some extent that’s the lighting at that particular time, though birch trunks can be a lot darker than the white + dark flecks we may often picture when we think of birch. This one is downy birch (Betula pubescens), which generally has less white in the trunk than does silver birch (B. pendula). Silver birch is scarce this far west, and typically has a taller, straighter trunk. This specimen of downy birch is markedly multi-stemmed.

Details: Pen; 2015; 30 cm x 21 cm. Unframed: original £150; print £30.

Included in the gallery Trees 1