A day that started late, with the first half being concerned with bread batch No.756, with the cold start to the oven continuing to work well. Two large, dark loaves.
A circuit which started with a few small clumps of dwarf cyclamen on Fair Green. Presumably from now until next Spring there is little enough grass cutting for them to survive, to put something back into their corms.
Followed, for a change, by a trolley from Waitrose. A trolley which looked to come from Wanzl, but which did not have one of their plates, rather one from Trolley Maintenance Services of Cricklade. A company last noticed more than 200 trolleys ago, in February, on a trolley from B&M, at reference 2. Clearly been a busy year, with trolley 800 being captured in March and trolley 900 in July. A run not interrupted so far by an incursion of my own trolley, which puts a stop to other peoples'.
Followed by a medium large trolley from M&S in the Kokoro Passage.
And another on Station Approach.
Picking up a non-scorer from the entrance to the Ashley Centre on the way over. From the food hall, I headed to East Street in the usual way, more a place for Sainsbury's trolleys, if anything, rather than trolleys from town.
Taking in what I remember as being the sumac outside the telephone exchange, not the staghorn sort. A middle size tree.
A detail.
But first, an image of the bark for Google Images. What, if anything, will he make of it? Tree identification books often include pictures of the bark, pictures which I have rarely found to be helpful.
Google Images turns up lots of bark, from all kinds of trees, with a lot of oak. None of it with the softening of the ridges visible above. But no sumac, and he remains unconvinced when I tell him that it is a sumac. And I see from reference 3, just about a year ago now, that I was a bit wobbly myself.
Next, I give him the leaves, for which he offers lots of similar images from Reddit, one of which talks of the tree of heaven, Ailanthus altissima, which cropped up recently at reference 5, and looks, from reference 4, to be likely here. The missing flowers of reference 3 look right. Talk of a distinctive smell of peanuts at reference 4, which is something I could check. But why has this tree not cropped up before?
Giving Google Images this clue, he is more cooperative, offering the above. I think we are making progress.
I then try him with the image of the bark again, together with the clue that it is the tree of heaven. He turns up plenty of images of same and tells me, despite appearances, that it is much more likely to be oak. I then try the image of the tree trunk, which he can't do much with, which is fair enough. But I then tell him that is is a tree of heaven, whereupon I get:
The tree in the image is likely a Chinese Pistache, Ash (Fraxinus), or Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). These species are suggested by the visual analysis of the tree and its foliage in the image, which aligns with the characteristics of these trees, including their leaves.
Perhaps Google Images, contrary to what I had thought, does maintain some context from one image search to the next. What would he do if I made up a three panel image?
I need to take yet another look. Am I absolutely sure that the suckers around really do come from the roots of the tree?
And having done the tree, I captured another trolley from M&S, unusual for the location. With the hollyhock that I have been noticing finally running out of puff in the background.
On the way back to town, I noticed a bad infestation of Union Jacks on lamp posts, an infestation which continued into the High Street. All rather unpleasant, but I suppose making a great old fuss about flying the Union Jack, which is, after all, our national flag, would seem a bit heavy handed and only make things worse. Let's hope that it is just a social media fuelled, passing fad.
And then in the Ashley Centre, for once in a while, a clear shot of brown wood fakery in the ceiling. I have been seeing quite of lot of this brown wood ceiling cladding recently, for example at Wisley, and I convinced myself that at least some of it (at London Bridge) was real timber. At least it is clear that this is not.
But I might say, that where the ends are much more prominent, that they are very neatly capped with matching brown wood caps. Push in, I suppose, a bit like Lego. You buy them in packs of 50?
PS 1: BH tells me that she came across a trolley man from M&S underneath Hudson House the other day. So, as I suspected, they do send someone out from time to time to take a look around.
PS 2: Gemini a bit waffly on what Google Images would do with a three part image. I shall have to give it a go.
PS 3: a little later. I try with the composite, three panel image above.
Maybe it really is a tree of heaven. And yes, at least when prompted, Google Images can deal with composite images. Also, given his shifting line on the bark, maybe the same tendency to agree with one as Gemini exhibits?
References
Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-974-and-975.html.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/trolley-771.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/sumac-revisited.html.
Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ailanthus_altissima.
Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-968-969-970-and-971.html.
Group search keys: trolleysk, 20250904.
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