Free oaks – only there were four of them!

I was very lucky this week to be asked if I would like four oak saplings, I of course said yes and waited for them to be brought round to the house. I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t think that I was expecting to hear the sound of a large lorry reversing into the drive but was somewhat surprised when a friend turned up with a shopping bag with the four oak saplings just managing to peek out over the brim of the bag. Still from small acorns etc.

Native UK oaks are split into two broad groups; the pendunculate, and the sessile varieties. The pendunculate oak is sometime referred to as the English oak, and can be differentiated from the sessile oak as their acorns grow at the end of long stalks or pendules. The pendunculate oak is incredibly important from a native wildlife perspective, it supports invertebrate life in abundance with several hundred moth species larvae feeding on its leaves. Even when it dies it supports life in the form of wood-boring beetle larvae and fungi.

Pendunculate laf

Pendunculate flowers

Pendunculate bark

Pendunculate acorns

The sessile oak tree has a domed shape and tend to grow in areas of higher rainfall than pendunculate oaks. The best remaining tracts of sessile oak are on steep slopes as they are hard to fell and these areas of trees are sometime referred to as hanging oak woodlands. Because of the damper conditions mosses and liverworts often flourish on the trunks and branches. Interesting that Pied Flycatchers reach their highest breeding densities when they nest in sessile oaks.

The acorns on the sessile oak grow directly on the twig without a stalk. The tree was once heavily coppiced for fuel and its bark was used in the leather industry in the tanning process, now its highly values as a support of wildlife.

Sessile leaf

Sessile acorns

Sessile trunk and bark

The bottom section of Pop’s Wood is sheltered and on a reasonable slope so maybe the new saplings would be successful there. I will have to have a good look and pick suitable spots. It did strike me that the very reason that the beech have succumbed is because of the damp ground so maybe the sessile oak could take their place.

More next time……………………