Flower time

[Cyclefrance]

Thankfully not! Another picture to take your mnd off that idea anyway!

This is an unusual tree - I haven't seen too many of them around. unexpectedly, we had one in the garden of our last house, one that was well established. It blossoms in May and is extremely colourful (as you can see). The flowers are small and tight - similar to forsythia flowers, but the leaves are rounded like large coins. We know it as a Judas Tree or Tree of Judaea.

This one (well there are actually two right next to each other - even more unusual!) lies in a farmer's field adjacent to the M25. The field and what looks to have been a small arboretum where it is located would have been part of the original Headley Court Estate a couple of centuries ago. The estate is now broken up, and the main house and about a quarter of the original grounds are a specialist MOD hospital used for rehabiltation and recouperatiom for troops injured in battle - we get a lot of Iraq and previously Afghanistan casualties being treated there (usually helicoptered in)

.