oak

• Has acorns and distinctively-shaped leaves
   
• Male flowers in drooping yellow catkins
   
• Female flowers in inconspicuous stalked spikes have reddish colour
  
• Oaks can grow 40 metres high and live for more than a thousand years
   

When to look for

• Flowers and leaves appear April-May
   
• Leaves drop November-December
   
• Ripe fruit September-October

pedunculate oak

Quercus robur

This is the classic English or common oak

• The leaves have almost no stalks but the acorns do

Mostly found in mixed woodland, but huge, isolated specimens are also seen in fields, hedgerows and parks. The dominant oak in the lowlands.


sessile oak

Quercus petraea

Opposite to pedunculate oak in that

• Acorns don’t have stalks
   
• Leaves do have stalks

It likes lighter, well-drained soils and is the dominant oak in the uplands most common in the north and west. It doesn’t tolerate flooding, unlike the pedunculate oak.

Did you know?

• More than 2000 species of fungi grow in association with oak
  
  
• Oak timber infected by the beefsteak fungus, Fistulina hepatica, is called ‘brown oak’ and used by furniture makers
  
  
• A considerable number of galls are found on oak leaves, buds, flowers, roots, etc. Examples are Oak artichoke gall, Oak Marble gall, Oak apple gall, Knopper gall, and Spangle gall
  
  
• Oak galls and iron salts were used to make a purple-black ink which was the standard writing ink in Europe from 1200 until the nineteenth century and known as ‘iron gall ink’
  
  
• In spring, fresh young oak leaves can be used to make a delicious medium dry white wine
  
  
• The beautiful bright yellow chicken of the woods fungus, Laetiporus sulphureus, is mainly found on oak trees