In the Middle Ages, and especially with the growing need for very large timbers for ecclesiastical and naval purposes, the practice arose of allowing some trees, usually oaks, to grow uncut. The number of coupes and the number of years of rotation vary with the purpose of the tree: the willow might be harvested for its flexible withies after only three years the hazel after seven for fences, hurdles, poles, and thatching struts and construction woods like oak after twenty or thirty years. In time, if coppicing is abandoned, they can grow to full-sized trees, but the multiple trunk is a sure sign of its history. They produce the characteristic appearance of coppiced woodland, with multiple trunks growing from near the ground. (Some species sprout up from their roots.) These therefore now grow up around the stump, and are called poles. With the canopy gone, the whole vigour of the tree is redirected to buds on the stump. Dormant buds below the cut are reactivated: normally they would be of little use to the plant, as (except for a few trees like limes) they prefer to direct their resources to leaves up in the canopy. The stump of the hardwood tree in a coppice is called a stool. Cutting down tall growth opens up the floor to light and allows a diverse ecology to colonise the ground: the existence of different-height stages allows diversity of life (bird, insect, fungus, mammal, flower) to find niches whatever the conditions they like. The oldest coupe is ready to cut down and become the youngest, and the coupes are thus rotated. These are regions at different levels of growth. Most surviving woodland in Britain is the product of a thousand years or more of continuous management the tradition was threatened and partly fell into disuse with the Industrial Revolution, and is being revived today.Ī coppice is divided into a number of coupes (or coups I don't know whether to pronounce these as coop or cowp: aha, wertperch tells me it's usually cowp). It was only a few great projects such as cathedrals and naval ships that needed 200-year-old oaks to be felled. Almost all the everyday uses of wood can be supplied by quite young growth: farm tools, fences, furniture, and houses are made from branches, withies, sticks from five years old for small objects to well-grown but still only thirty years old for beams. The history of the world, indeed, could have been very different if Neolithic farmers had launched their agrarian revolution by cutting down all the trees for firewood and farmland: no great oaks, no mighty ships, no British Empire perhaps.īut coppicing has been practised from Neolithic times. I don't know how generally true this is of trees around the world, but it is vitally important for the ecological history of Britain, a densely-populated island. Most of the hardwood trees of Britain regenerate well from stumps, whereas conifers would die. The trees themselves thrive on this, and live much longer than they would if left untouched. A coppice is a traditional form of woodland management, cutting trees back to stumps repeatedly and harvesting the new growth some years later.
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