This is StoryQuest. Today's story is the howling wood.

The children were causing chaos.

I'm going to climb it, said one.

I can swing from this branch, said another.

Oh, I think I need a wee.

Said one more.

There was a whole group of children on their holidays, and they were having the best time in the wood.

But the trees, the trees were not happy.

Not happy at all.

But why?

We'll come to that in just a second.

But when you go to play in the park, do you ever stop to look at the leaves beneath your feet, or those rustling on the branches above?

If you have taken a moment, you might have noticed how many different type of leaves there are.

Beach leaves, a neat little pointy ovals, almost impossibly green when the

spring light shines through. Birch leaves are similar but are fatter at the bottom.

Maple trees which belong to the family of trees known as aces have broad leaves like hands

and often has the brightest colours in autumn,

with hues of yellow and russet and even pink.

And then you have sycamore trees with leaves that look a bit like the aces.

The clue is to look for the sycamore seeds on the twigs and then on the floor,

just like little helicopters that spin to the forest ground. Of all the leaves, perhaps the most distinctive of all is the oak.

No other tree has quite the same shape, with its seemingly uneven lobes in uneven numbers.

...