Winter twigs with alternate buds

I cannot deny that my desk is crowded with things. I've been living with the rest of the twigs from this post in the hope that I would get around to showing you the ones with alternate buds. Here's Batch One. You can already see that some are thin and some are stouter, some have tiny buds and some have bigger, some are rounded and some are pointy... you get the idea. These are the sorts of things you can note in your notebook along with a little sketch, to show how you've gone about your identification.

This is the dainty one on the left:

I followed the dichotomous key in May and Panter's FSC guide. I like to write down notes from the couplets (this is the best idea) but even if you just put the sequence of numbers you follow, that will show to the person marking your work that you've used the key and thought about the process. Here that would be 1, 17, 23, 24, 25, 39, 43, 44, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59. Which brings us to a choice between the Wych elm (Ulmus glabra) and English elm (Ulmus procera). I'm inclined to think it's an English elm although these would be less common. The buds are darker than the twigs, they're not offset from the leaf scar below them, and they're not covered in orange hairs as Wych elm's would be.  You can't help thinking you'd see some orange hairs if they were there.

Above some of the buds were some little sticky-out things, which at first I was inclined to think were some weird hibernating creature. But on reflection, I think they're the first signs of the flowers - with elms the flowers come out before the leaves and are strange pink things:

CC image by Rosser1954

English elm is an endemic, only found in Britain. Its distinctive tall shape can be seen in Constable's paintings (like the Haywain). But the trees were devastated by a fungal disease in the 1970s and there are only a handful of mature specimens left in the whole country. But mine (if I am right, and it is an English elm) was only a small thing in a hedge - that's where you would expect to find this species. I think it would be rather a nice one to include in your collection.

Here's the next one

I feel like this ought to be cherry. It's got the right shape buds (longer than wide, a bit pointy with lots of scales). It's supposed to have some buds in clusters, but I'm hoping that would be lower down the twig (ah you see the value of taking good notes in the field, in your field notebook. If I had done, I'd know either way). It's supposed to have 'distinctive horizontal marks' - and it is a bit splotchy. In my favour, although it doesn't sound a very convincing answer when you use 'May and Panter', the pictures in 'Price and Bersweden' are rather encouraging. So it's worth using both books (I still have some copies to borrow if you don't want to shell out). Also, there are many different hybrids and cultivars of cherry. So this might be a bird cherry. Or maybe it's a different sort.

Next up the distinctive plump buds of hazel with convenient confirmatory leaf. It's worth looking around for clues like leaves if there are any. I don't call it cheating. Just prune it off before submission :)

I've got plenty more - there are many more alternately-budded species than opposite-budded species to collect. I'll just show you my alder twig as it has such distinctive bulbous 'boxing glove' buds.

 It's another example where there's an added clue to help your identification. I always think of alders as having cone-like rounded catkins (that's an easy way to spot an alder). But the one above is a male catkin, not a female catkin. It'll go greeny yellow and expand out to release pollen. As with the elms, this will happen before any leaves appear. I would leave the catkins on your twig when you preserve it - I think they'd make a good addition.