Common Oak Trees

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Latin name: Quercus robur

Size: Up to 35 metres in height

Distribution: Found throughout the UK

Flowering months: May.  The male flowers hang down on bright green catkins.  Near the tip of each twig, on the end of long stalks, are the reddish-brown coloured female flowers.

Special features: Sometimes called the 'English' oak.  When growing in open areas the Oak has a wide, rounded crown.  But woodland specimens are usually tall and slender.

The timber of the oak can be used in the building of ships, houses, furniture and gates.  The bark is used in the tanning of leather.  The oak tree can also be home to hundreds of species of invertebrate.

The leaves appear just before the flowers in April.  They have four or five lobes on each side, and no stalks where they join to the branches of the tree.  At the base of the leaf there are rounded flaps on each side.

Every year, around September, the tree develops its fruits called 'acorns'.  The acorns develop at the ends of long stalks called 'peduncles'.  It is these stalks which give the tree its alternative name the 'pedunculate oak'.  The acorns contain the seeds of the tree.  They are also a useful source of food for squirrels and jays.

The Oak is a deciduous tree, and in the autumn, usually around November, it sheds its leaves.

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