Pedunculate Oak

The wood from the Pedunculate Oak is the preferred wood for gateposts, gates, railings and cart-wheel spokes.
Dedicated to: 
Claire Elizabeth Moss 21/02/1979-19/05/2020. Claire loved trees.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Quercus robur
Family: 
Beeches, Sweet Chestnuts and Oaks
Family Latin name: 
FAGACEAE
Category: 
Flowering Plants
Vernacular names: 

Sussex weed

Species description

Species description

The greenish-yellow catkins of this native oak appear in April. Oak wood is hard, tough, enduring, and stands salt water, and was the mainstay of house (krucks) and ship building for centuries, and also for mechanisms of water- and windmills. It is the preferred wood for gateposts, gates, railings, oak pale fencing, and cart-wheel spokes. Other uses include ladder rungs, barrel stave making, wooden spades, hacks (tools like mattocks), heavy mallets, and pegs for fitting wooden joints. Blacksmiths' anvils were embedded in inverted oak tree root stocks. Oak bark was essential in the tanning industry, and oak bark extract was once used for malaria, as a gargle for sore throats, and for diarrhoea and dysentery. If you are going to kill a vampire the stake must be made of oak. Oak bobbins on the ends of window blind cords were thought to protect the house from lightning strikes. An ink is made from oak gall. Oak sawdust is burned in the curing and smoking of fish and ham. 

Acorns can be turned into flour and a coffee substitute. If boiled and ground then a flour is obtained, and if roasted and ground then acorn 'coffee' is the result. To make a drink of the latter, steep in boiling water for 15 minutes, filter and drink. 

These trees support more life than any other native British tree. It is host to hundreds of species, providing an ample supply of food to birds. Grey Squirrels feed on their acorns. Leaf mould supports a myriad of invertebrates. Bats nest in the cracks of the tree's trunk. Stag beetles are supported by the tree's leaf mould.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
The wood from the Pedunculate Oak is the preferred wood for gateposts, gates, railings and cart-wheel spokes.
The greenish-yellow catkins of the native Pedunculate Oak appear in April.
An ink is made from the oak galls that form on Pedunculate Oaks.
Other uses for the wood from the Pedunculate Oak include ladder rungs, barrel stave making and wooden spades.
The wood from the Pedunculate Oak is the preferred wood for gateposts, gates, railings and cart-wheel spokes.

Details

Species family information

This is a large family worldwide, the trees being characterised by catkin-like flowers and fruit in the form of single cup-like nuts. Some species are valued timber trees.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late Pre-Cambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian. The Embryophytes are green land plants that form the bulk of the Earth’s vegetation. They have specialised reproductive organs and nurture the young embryo sporophyte. Most obtain their energy by photosynthesis, using sunlight to synthesise food from Carbon Dioxide and Water.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads, and finally the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants.