The Incredible Oak Tree

Since historical times the Oak tree has been celebrated in popular literature as a symbol of strength and endurance. The poet Alfred Tennyson wrote -

"Live thy life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold."

The writer Shirley Ann Grau wrote - "Oak trees come out of acorns, no matter how unlikely that seems. An acorn is just a tree's way back into the ground. For another try. Another trip through. One life for another".

And, according to E. F. Schumacher - "Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees".

There are over 600 varieties of Oaks, ranging over a vast geographical area - in the North Temperate zones, namely, the Urals, the Caucasus, Mount Taurus, Mount Atlas, the Scottish Highlands, the Himalayas, and even in Polynesia. Vast tracts of Central Europe were once covered with Oak forests, and Greeks, Romans, Norsemen, Anglo-Saxons, all made use of the hard and durable timber for the advancement of their civilizations. It held a place of special importance with the English later as the whole edifice of their Empire rested ultimately on the majestic Oak; nearly all the ships that made them such a great naval power were constructed of Oak wood. The iron used for their weapons was also smelted using oak wood. Churches and other buildings were constructed out of oak. Oak wood was also used and is still considered the best medium for aging Scotch whiskey. Oak bark has medicinal value and was used also in tanning and dyeing. Oak Acorns provided food for animals as well as humans; it is also a source for tannin and oil.

Some of the different oak species are - Gobbler Sawtooth Oak, Bur Oak, Northern Red Oak, Willow Oak, Pin Oak, White Oak, Quercus Macracarpa Oak, Quercus Accutissima Oak, Himalayan Oak, Pedunculate Oak. All these are members of the Beech Family and scientifically known as 'Quercus' or 'Lithocarpus', and are deciduous trees; which means all their broad, irregular-shaped leaves are shed seasonally. The trees, which require a moderate water supply and can live over 200 years, are tall, with a thick, sturdy trunk and a distinctive, majestic shape - a wide, gracefully domed crown of outward spreading branches. New leaves appear in the spring and afterwards the male and female catkins. The former are pendulous and bear stalkless bunches of flowers; the latter are erect and bear solitary flowers on the ends of the new shoots. Red leaves appear in the summer. Acorn-production usually begins in a 20-yr old tree, and continues yearly after that, the crop varying in quantity according to various factors - climate, rainfall, soil condition, pests, and so on.

The Acorns attract Squirrels, Blue Jays, Wood-peckers, Deer, Wild Turkey and a variety of creatures to the Oak Tree. If the acorns aren't eaten outright, they are stored to provide sustenance in the approaching winter. The rest of the crop scatters at the foot of the tree and is covered by layers of falling leaves. A large percentage of these are attacked by mold or fungi. There are several other threats to the Oak acorns, the most insidious being the weevils. These tiny insects are capable of destroying practically an entire acorn crop. What they do is lay eggs inside the developing acorns and these then become the food source for the growing larvae. Other threats come from leaf-eating insects like caterpillar and oak-leaf-roller moths, which destroy the foliage, and carpenter ants, beetles, wasps and fungi which attack and hollow the wood. Some of this damage is stemmed by birds, which feed on the above-mentioned pests, and then there is the humble earthworm that helps maintain the 'podzol' or rich soil needed for tree growth. However there is little defense against sudden frosts, droughts, fire or lighting strikes, which even a mature tree has a hard time withstanding. So, although thousands upon thousands of acorns are produced annually, very few of these ultimately manage to evolve into an oak tree.

Some famous Oak Trees -

The Wye Oak of Maryland, U.S.A., which was uprooted in a storm in 2002, is said to have stood 105 feet tall, with a circumference of 32 feet and a crown spread of 158 feet.

The still extant Seven Sisters Oak of Lewisburg, Mandeville, Louisiana - reportedly over 1000 years old - has a circumference of 32 feet 2 inches and a crown spread of 150 feet.

An Anecdote about the Oak -

James Gosling, the leader of Green Project of Sun Microsystems was going to name the Java programming language 'Oak' after the tree he could see from his window. But the name had already been copyrighted by someone else.