Hugh Williamson

Taken today in Bath Botanical Gardens - Tulip tree, fern-leaf beech, and an unusual xCrataemespilus.

In the Southwest UK, the autumn colour is exceptional after a long, dry summer. Liriodendrons in particular are vivid gold. Also Liquidambar, Acer saccharum, Parrotia persica. Poor year for Quercus palustris.

Their Royal Highnesses, surely? It's a royal dukedom, after all.

I'm sitting here in the UK and the @bsky.app algorithm threw up this - and I'm 100% here for it - and for y'all.

Jon Stokes in his excellnet new book for the Tree Council says spiral galls are indeed an indicator of native Black Poplar @ticl.me

Clare Bridge - lovely spot.

He wouldn't have had much use for his horse for a while anyway.

Those hapless scientists always trying to get them back.

A complex case. HE and C20S make recommendations on architectural merit, while DCMS have to weigh up all aspects. Bath's geography is difficult vis-a-vis response times and upgrading a 90-year-old building sounds £££. I live half a mile away and will miss it - one of Mollie Taylor's best.

Wow, nice feather in the cap for NE Somerset.

This is the preparatory drawing he made when the Duke was back in Madrid having just returned from campaigning.

As I'm sure you know, Oxford Ragwort was supposedly propagated around the UK from Oxford in the mid-19C via the newly-built railway lines.

They care because they would much rather drowning was at #1, knocking guns off top spot.

Probably my favourite diagonal in art - arm, leg, tablecloth, bottle. Almost as dramatic as the slashing diagonal of a Guillotine blade.

To me, the plate balanced rather precariously on her knee prompts me to imagine it sliding off - and a chaos of flying china and mushrooms shattering that vermeerish tranquillity.

I was transfixed by it (her) in the Uffizi. Felt a bit awkward, which I guess was part of the point.

That's exactly what I thought - only you thought it four hours before I did.

Very impressive piece of work - eminently usable. Can only imagine how many iterations it took to arrive at this answer.

You again! What do want this time?

prospered.attitudes.lock

Young conductress takes over while the previous incumbent is away on the Western Front.

Please do - a dreich November day in 2023.

She's St Eve of Paradise and the apple is the instrument of her martyrdom.

This one is at the Tortworth Court Hotel in Gloucestershire (channeling the Tortworth Chestnut, obvs). 7.13m waistline.

Exceedingly good.

I mention the No Parking Whitebeam whenever I come across a Sorbus on one of my tree walks - always a crowd-pleaser.

Strange to think that energetic infant would grow up to be the corpulent George IV.

A Fierce Bad Rabbit by Beatrix Potter

Any relation?

One of the handful of paintings that really caught my eye in the Palazzo Pitto. I had never heard of the artist before.

Ditto charity shop books: "We check all our prices on the internet, and then we cover the 1950s paper wrapper in ickyness".