There are more than 7,000 trees in Alexandra Park and our resident expert, Stephen Middleton from The Friends of Alexandra Park is introducing some of his favourites…

Chess-apples is an intriguing local name from the Midlands and further north for the berries of the September Tree of the Month.

The Common Whitebeam (Aria edulis) is in the rose family and is quite closely related to the rowan.

This tree is native to southern and south-eastern England. It is not that common in the wild and when present prefers chalky or limestone soil (alkaline). Whitebeams are more often found in parks and streets. To find our tree, it is at the southern end of an avenue of trees from Dukes Avenue to Alexandra Palace Way. 

For the history buffs, this connection closed to cars sometime in the 1970s and the first of the whitebeams were planted in the 1980s. 

The whitebeam is so named due to the underside of the leaves which are white and downy and beam is an old Anglo-Saxon name for a tree (in German “baum”). The word beam crops up in another native tree, the hornbeam.

Our tree of the month normally only grows up to a maximum of 15 metres in this country.

Large numbers of grouped small white flowers cover this tree in May and at this time of year the red fruits (technically pomes) are visible and plentiful on the tree. Birds are keen on them. They are edible, but like medlars they need to be bletted (frosted) to be palatable to humans – the freezer will work. You can find a whitebeam fruit recipe on My Nature Nook. 

Whitebeam is a strong wood and was previously used for cogs and tool handles before metals took over.

Some sources say that the trees were used as boundary markers, which is logical as their large leaves with white undersides make them stand out.

There are more whitebeams on the left as you walk up towards the Palm Court from the tree of the month.