Fact file: English oak

Here is a fact file to go with yesterday’s newly planted English oak:

Common name: English oak, pedunculate oak, common oak

Scientific name: Quercus robur

Family: Fagaceae

Description: A large, slow-growing deciduous tree up to 20–40m tall. Its leaves are 10cm long with 4–5 deep lobes with smooth edges; they have almost no stem and grow in bunches. The flowers are yellow hanging catkins. The acorns grow in cups on long stems called peduncles.

Habitat: English oak is a long-lived tree of high-canopy deciduous woodland and coppice. It is commonly planted in hedges but often survives the removal of the hedge to become a stand-alone mature tree like the Lone Oak in Cornfield. It grows in all kinds of soil and can tolerate intermittent flooding.

Conservation status: common and widespread; so common in England that it has assumed the status of a national emblem.

DYK: The Bowthorpe Oak in Lincolnshire is estimated to be 1,000 years old, making it the oldest English oak in the UK.

The Bowthorpe Oak © Copyright Robin Jones (CC BY-SA 2.0) geograph.com