Yesterday’s picture of an artichoke gall among oak tree leaves produced questions and enquiries from our readers via Messenger, Facebook and our website’s below-the-line comments column. Here is more information about oak gall wasps.
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These are the flowers of an oak tree. Oaks are monoecious; they have male flowers and female flowers on the same tree.
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Squirrels are true omnivores, they eat anything. This one is browsing either on the male flowers of an oak tree or on the new leaf buds. To eat either, the squirrel bites off the whole tuft of new leaves and all the flowers, and when it has eaten the tastiest pieces it throws the rest on the ground.
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By Ian Bushell
Southwick Country Park has a number of veteran oaks and ten ancient oaks. There are no hard and fast rules about when and why an oak tree becomes classified as veteran or ancient; in different environments and soils oaks grow at different rates and girth is only an indicator. Here the underlying Oxford clay provides an excellent medium and the trees are large and shapely.
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More about our oaks.
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Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 