Lime Nail Galls
Those look like Lime trees. I’m not sure though.
They’re in the grounds of Forde House, a luxury Jacobean manor house in South Devon. It looks great from this angle. It’s a shame about the six lanes of traffic going across the front lawn and an ugly modern council building at the back.
On the tree leaves are bright red galls. An insect has been laying its eggs in these leaves and the tree has developed a spectacular but ineffective defence.
They are Lime Nail Galls, Eriophyes tiliae. That seems such a lame name for something so spectacular.
I decide to try some more stylish photographs once I’ve got a few record shots.
That’s better.
A quick change of camera to a small compact with manual controls gives me a depth of focus so narrow it hardly exists.
Magical.