The mighty oak
By Stan Tekiela
One of the most important parts of any forest ecosystem or ecology is the mighty oak tree. It is often a huge sprawling tree with thick heavy branches, large dark green leaves and a trunk covered with thick bark. There are approximately 500 species of oak tree found all around the world in the Northern Hemisphere. They grow from the cold temperate regions down to the tropical latitudes. They occur in Asia, Europe, North Africa and of course North America.
North America has the most oak species with approximately 90 distinct kinds of oak in the United States. Oak trees are one of my favorite trees but NOT at this time of year. More about my beef with oak trees shortly. They are an ancient group of trees. The oldest fossil record in North America dates to the Middle Eocene, around 44 million years ago, and was found in Oregon. In other parts of the world, the fossil record dates to 55 million years ago.
They are such an amazing and incredibly diverse group of trees. For example, most oaks are deciduous, which means they drop their leaves each fall and grow new leaves in the spring, but some oaks are evergreen, holding their leaves all year long just like evergreen trees. Not many tree species have this kind of diversity.
Oak trees can be broken down into 2 different categories or groups. The White Oak group and the Red Oak Group. The difference can be seen in the leaves. All the oaks in the White Oak group have round tips of their leaves. While all of the oaks in the Red Oak group have pointed tips. This is a quick and easy way to group the oaks.
In addition, White Oak trees produce flowers each spring. Yes, I know, you are probably thinking right now that you’ve never seen oak trees with flowers. That is because oaks have small green flowers that occur in early spring before the leaves start to grow. These flowers, after being pollinated, turn into acorns. White Oaks produce acorns every year. The Red Oaks also produce flowers in the spring, but the resulting acorns don’t mature and fall from the tree until the following year. Red Oaks produce acorns every other year. So, if you have an oak tree in your yard and you are only raking up acorns every other year you have a Red Oak type of tree. If you are raking up acorns every year, like I do, then you have a White Oak type of tree.