Among the Slavic peoples, oak has long been considered a symbol of male power and the personification of the power of the people. Therefore, it was customary to reward royalty or simply distinguished people in the old days not only with gifts, but also with a wreath of oak branches.

Where and how does oak grow.

Nowadays in the world there are more than 450 various kinds this tree. Now oak is widespread not only in Europe and Asia, but also in America and even Africa. This is one of the most tall trees, often reaching a height of 50 m and, most surprisingly, up to 5 m in girth. There are quite a few trees of this height in the world, but only oak can boast of such power.

What else is oak known for?

Oak is especially appreciated because of the beautiful and very durable wood, from which especially expensive, elite furniture is made. It reproduces by fruits called acorns. The oak fruit ripens, like the fruits of others - in the fall. They are rich in starch. Sometimes they are used to prepare a surrogate drink that tastes like coffee, and in ancient times, and even more recently, in the second world war and during the famine of them cooked bread .

Their oak leaves in antiquity brewed medicinal decoction, which relieved gum disease, healed stab and cut wounds, helped stop external and internal bleeding.

  1. general description
  2. Botanical classification
  3. Habitat
  4. Beneficial features
  5. The main types of mighty oaks
  6. Oaks of Russia
  7. American oak genus
  8. Europe and Mediterranean

The family of oaks, according to various sources, reaches 450 ... 600 species. Representatives grow in different corners planets in temperate latitudes, where the climate suits the needs of the tree.

Russia is one of the most favorable countries for growing oak: territories with nutritious soil, open areas without shade, sufficient rainfall and optimal temperature regimes for the plant.

general description

Regardless of the type and variety of wood, oak has common features, which determine belonging to the genus:

  • The height of an individual is from 25 to 40 meters;
  • Spreading deciduous or evergreen crown;
  • Oak leaf different sort lobed or serrated with pinnate venation;
  • The bark is rough, with age cracks;
  • The trunk in young individuals is thin, in older individuals it is noticeably thickened and massive.

Many species bloom at the same time as the leaves open.. Women's and male flowers are on the same tree:

  • Women's are in the axils of the leaves on the tops of young shoots (as in the photo). Perianth in 3 sections, poorly developed;
  • Male flowers are collected in catkins at the base of the shoots. The perianth is divided into 5-7 sections, up to 12 stamens.

Pollination occurs in the usual ways: wind or insects.

Oak fruit - acorn, ripens in autumn, after wintering, a new tree begins to grow. At the base there is always a hard flattened hat, by which one can always determine belonging to the oak family. The shape of the fruit is elongated or spherical, from golden to brown in color, depending on the type of plant and its place of growth.

Oak propagates by cuttings, planting acorns, regrowth can occur from a live stump.

Botanical classification

Regardless of the variety, the scientific classification of the genus is as follows:

Pedunculate oak occupies a conditional place of termination logical chain, in its place you can safely put the remaining types of wood.

Habitat

Oak is common in areas with temperate climate and grows naturally in different countries:

  • In Russia (Far East, Siberia, middle Asia, Vladikavkaz);
  • In the countries of Western and Southern Europe;
  • In Canada;

In an artificial way different types were transferred to all corners of the world with a climate suitable for oak.

Beneficial features

Many types of oak trees are used in construction, medicine, furniture and cooperage industries:

  • Wood has high strength and resistance to various kinds of influences;
  • Products are durable;
  • The composition of the bark and wood contains a lot of tannins that help stop blood, tone muscles and cells.

There is a classification of oak wood for the production of finishing or manufacturing products.. Sorting is carried out according to many criteria:

  • The size of the original trunk;
  • Evenness and uniformity of the material;
  • The age of the tree;
  • Chemical and mechanical performance according to test results.

The main types of mighty oaks

The genus includes up to half a thousand (and maybe more) varieties of this tree known to everyone.

Oaks of Russia

Petiolate (Quercus robur) - traditional for Russia and Western European countries representative.

Distinctive features:

  • Resistant to large temperature differences;
  • Long drought tolerance;
  • Wind resistant.

Prefers good fertile soil. IN field conditions The plant reaches 50 meters in height. In group plantings, individuals are lower, the crowns are located in the upper part of the trunk, which is ensured by high light-loving. The leaves are large - up to 15 cm in length. Pedunculate oak is considered a long-liver - the age of individual individuals is 1500 years with medium duration life 300-500 years.

Chestnut oak is a rare representative of the genus, listed in the Red Book. It was subjected to active felling for use in construction purposes - its wood is highly frost-resistant and hard. The trunk can stretch up to 30 meters, the crown has the shape of a tent. The leaves, with pointed triangular edges, are similar to those from which the species gets its name.

In Russia, the chestnut leaf plant is found in wide deciduous forests and in artificial park areas. Active work is underway to restore the population of this species.

Large anthered oak grows in the southern mountainous regions of the Caucasus. Artificially planted in park areas.

Distinctive features:

  • Short leaf (up to 8 cm) with blunt lobes;
  • Light-loving;
  • slow growth;
  • Drought and frost resistant.

Mongolian oak has an attractive decorative appearance, for which it is loved by landscape designers. In Russia, a tree is planted in alleys as an array or tapeworm on land.

The leaves of the representative are elongated, reach 20 cm. In summer, their color is dark green, at the beginning of falling off - bright brown. The tree grows well in partial shade.

Oak Gartvisa (Armenian) begins a genus in the Western Caucasus. The leaves are obovate, have up to 12 rounded pairs. Acorns are formed and develop on long stalks. In view of the peculiarities of origin, they like moderate shading, humidity, warm temperatures, fertile soil. It does not tolerate winter well, therefore it cannot grow in colder regions.

American oak genus

Origin on the American continent have the following varieties of plants:

Red is a bright powerful tree up to 30 (sometimes 50) meters high. The diameter of the trunk reaches 1 meter. Distinctive feature- the specific color of the leaves: after blooming, they have a reddish base, in summer they are bright green, in autumn they acquire a raspberry or bright brown hue. For other characteristics, the tree is similar to the Russian petiolate representative of the genus.

Bright coloring has made it a popular decoration of urban landscapes - the tree is artificially grown in different parts of the Earth.

Northern (boreal) comes from North America, similar to red. Egg-shaped crown and leaves. The trunk differs from other representatives in smoothness - it is less prone to coarsening and cracking.

The leaf reaches 25 cm in length, in autumn it becomes bright red.

The tree is common in European countries, grows in forest and park plantations.

A stone evergreen giant like a classic from films - a wide spreading crown with infrequent branches, a large diameter trunk with gray bark and deep cracks.

The leaves of holm oaks are small - up to 8 cm. They are distinguished by a yellowish or white substrate, sometimes with hairiness.

The tree is unpretentious to habitat conditions: it grows on any soil in any light. Amenable to floral decoration.

The genus of holm oak includes several decorative subspecies: curly, small and round, long, narrow-leaved, golden-motley, Ford Form.

Large-fruited oak is distinguished by the presence of enlarged acorns - up to 5 cm in length. The plush occupies about half the length of the fruit. The stem is short.

By the tree interesting leaves: elongated with a wedge-shaped base, up to 5 pairs of blades. When blooming, they have a silvery color with a spraying effect, then they turn saturated green, acquire shine, the lower plane turns slightly white.

The tree loves moisture, therefore it grows in rainy areas or near water bodies.

Willow can be confused with willow due to the similar shape of the leaf - narrow oblong up to 12 cm in length. The crown in autumn acquires a dull yellow color.

Unlike willow, the willow oak is unpretentious in terms of soil and habitat: it lives in deciduous forests and looks good in artificial park plantings.

Europe and Mediterranean

– evergreen tree up to 20 meters in height. Small oval leaves up to 6 cm long with a shiny surface and pubescent substrate. The acorns are small, deeply recessed into the plush.

The cork representative loves moisture, but is drought tolerant, grows slowly. It is planted in alleys and squares.

It is a valuable cork nose native to the Mediterranean.

The rocky (sedentary) species is widely used as the main array in forest and park plantations. The leaf has a long two-centimeter petiole, the female acorns and flowers have a short stalk.

The tree loves warmth, shade, moderate humidity. The genus originates in Eastern Europe: in the Carpathians, in Moldova, Ukraine, slightly distributed in Western Europe.

A fluffy oak often resembles a bush up to 10 meters high (as in the photo). Its leaves, flowers, shoots and acorns have felt pubescence, the fruits are deeply recessed into the plush. Grows on calcareous and dry soils in vivo, it is difficult to cultivate (almost never occurs). At the same time, it is sheared and crowned, and serves as an excellent backdrop for a higher composition.

The durability and appearance of oaks made a great impression on people even in antiquity. Old trees were worshiped as temples of the deity by most of the peoples of Europe. The ancient Romans and Greeks believed that this mighty tree was the habitat of their supreme deities- Jupiter and Zeus. This is why the Roman Empire celebrated its prominent citizens with oak leaf wreaths. The mention of these trees is found even in the Old Testament.

Description and distribution of oak

This genus of plants, first identified in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, has between 400 and 600 species. The distribution area includes most of the northern hemisphere, ranging from temperate to tropical zone on different continents:

  • America.
  • Europe.
  • North Africa and Asia.

Grows in North America the largest number species, with about 90 found in the United States and 160 in Mexico, of which 109 species are endemic. The second largest center of oak diversity is China, which has about 100 species.

In Europe, during ice age, oak populations were limited to only three areas located in Spain, Italy and the Balkans. Later, they again colonized the territory of the European continent. Today, oaks are key species in a wide range of habitats of Mediterranean semi-desert and subtropical forests. They are also important components of deciduous forests.

Oak leaves are traditionally an important part of the regalia german army. The Nazi Party used the traditional German eagle as its coat of arms, standing over a swastika in a wreath of oak leaves.

During the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, oak leaves were depicted on the cross of the Knights of the Iron Cross. They also symbolize the title in Armed Forces U.S.A.

Oak fruits - acorns are a kind of nuts that play an important role in the self-organization of ecosystems and in human life. These are the breadwinners of forest animals and birds, a guarantee of rapid renewal forest ecosystems, the basis of forestry, a source of food and medicinal raw materials for humans.

Oak and acorn - distribution and role in nature

Oak is a tree or shrub from the beech family. There are at least 600 species of this genus on the planet. Most of them are large and long-lived trees.

Oak forests and woodlands are concentrated mainly in Europe. Oak is a forest-forming species in western North America. Several species are native to the Southern Hemisphere.

In Russia, the range of species of this genus is disjunctive. Oak forests grow in the European part of Russia, mainly in the zone of southern broad-leaved and mixed forests. Most of Russian Asia is taiga, where there are no conditions for the growth of broad-leaved species. And only in the south Far East, or rather, in Primorye and the Amur Region, oak forms pure oak forests, and is also part of mixed coniferous-deciduous forests.

In addition, oak trees grow in Northern China and Korea. Once upon a time there were oak forests in Transbaikalia, but fires and logging almost completely destroyed the species that grew here - the Mongolian oak.

Oak has a whole range of advantages in the formation of forest communities. There are three main ones among them:

  • the ability of an acorn to germinate quickly and form a shoot and root;
  • formation huge trees, supplying acorns to a long trophic chain and a large territory;
  • the ability of young oaks to quickly recover from damage.

Oak grows in the first year of its life very quickly due to the huge supply nutrients in the stomach. During the first months of its life, a tree can very quickly form not only a ground shoot, but also a powerful root. When a young trunk is damaged, the tree does not die, but on next year re-grows from the root.

Oak trees grown from an acorn that have not been injured in early age, usually live long and grow into giant trees. Oaks damaged in the first years of their lives show miracles of heroism, each time growing anew, but wait from them large sizes not necessary, it will be thin-barreled crooked trees or shrubs.

So the answer to the question of what an oak looks like is not always unambiguous. It can be a mighty sprawling tree, a crooked, thin-stemmed wounded tree or a shrub that grows up to no more than 3 m.

The structure and composition of the acorn

The description of the oak fruit is very simple. This is a one-seeded dry syncarp nut with a leathery and hard pericarp. In all types of oaks, it is attached to the metatarsus, which looks like a cap, but consists of fused bracts and reduced inflorescences. All oaks have only one nut attached to the metatarsus.

All acorns have an oblong rounded shape. The average length of a fruit without a metatarsus is 3.5 cm. The width of acorns ranges from 1 to 1.5 cm.

The acorn is a late fruit. Its growth and maturation occur at the beginning of August and continue until the end of September. In October and November, acorns finally ripen and fall off.

Usually acorns do not need winter dormancy, but germinate in the same autumn. In this state, they hibernate under the snow. This enables the seedling in early spring grow very quickly. By autumn, a full-fledged oak tree is formed with a length of roots and shoots of more than a meter.

The acorn is not in vain considered a forest breadwinner. Its calorie content is 387 kcal. Oak nut contains:

  • carbohydrates - 40.8%;
  • fats - 23.9%;
  • proteins - 6.2%.

Present:

  • vitamins: A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, D, E, K;
  • trace elements: potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus;
  • macronutrients: iron, copper, zinc, manganese.

Fresh acorns taste slightly bitter. This is due to the presence of quercetin, a flavonol with antioxidant properties. It is thanks to quartzetin that acorns are used in the fight against sclerosis, and also as an antitumor, antiallergic and regenerating agent.

Acorn Lover - Squirrel

Acorns are big nutritional value. It is not surprising that wild boars, bears, squirrels and other lovers of hazelnuts usually abound in oak forests. And in the cedar-deciduous forests of the Far East, two breadwinners - cedar and oak - contain sables, two species of bears, wild boars, squirrels, chipmunks, badgers. If we trace the trophic chain, it turns out that oak and cedar feed tigers, wolves, raccoon dogs, etc.

Oak nut flour

People are accustomed to the fact that the utilitarian use of oak is only wood. The combination of durability, reliability and the possibility of processing make oak wood really very popular in various areas of the economy. However, the role of oak in human life is not limited to boards and logs.

Once upon a time, people who lived among oak forests collected acorns and made flour from them. This is what the North American Indians did, and in Korea, acorn flour is still part of national cuisine.

In Russia, acorns are used for food only in two versions - in the form of flour and a drink resembling coffee.

The most time-consuming process is the release of the contents of the nut from the shell. However, there is a simple way - to subject the acorns to a mild heat treatment. Oak nuts need to be put on a cast-iron pan or just a sheet of iron, quickly heat the acorns, constantly turning over. As soon as the shell begins to crack, the acorns must be removed from the heat. They should be cleaned immediately while hot.

After that, you need to select only light nuts, cut them into several parts, pour cold water and leave for 2 days. Water should be changed at least 3 times every day. This removes the bitter taste characteristic of acorns.

The last water is drained, and in fresh water the acorns need to be heated and boiled for about 5 minutes. After that, the nuts must be slightly dried, and then ground in a meat grinder. In this crushed form, they are easy to dry on a baking sheet.

Ground acorns can be the basis for grinding into flour. In addition, they can be added to pies to give the dough unusual taste. This flour can be used to bake bread. Only for this, 100 g of wheat flour must be added to 400 g of acorn flour.

acorn drinks

Drinks from oak fruits contribute to:

  • lower blood sugar levels;
  • normalization of work of cardio-vascular system;
  • reduce the frequency of onset of arrhythmia attacks;
  • lowering high blood pressure;
  • reduction in the number of pathogens;
  • potency increase;
  • treatment of diarrhea;
  • elimination of enuresis;
  • improvement of reproductive functions in women;
  • relief from colitis and indigestion;
  • treatment of diseases of the bronchopulmonary system.

Drinks from acorns can be drunk instead of coffee: to taste and appearance they are reminiscent of this famous drink. Acorn coffee does not contain caffeine, but there are a lot of useful ingredients.

To prepare the classic version of coffee from acorns, you need to grind the peeled fruits in a coffee grinder, and then fry them in a dry frying pan, stirring all the time. The taste of acorn coffee depends on the degree of roasting. The drink is prepared in the same way as coffee. The optimal concentration of acorn grinding is 1 tsp. to a glass of water.

You can add sugar to taste, honey, milk, cognac, liquor to the drink. The last two ingredients are added not only to give the drink a special flavor, but also to dilate blood vessels.

This drink really tastes like coffee, and when you add milk, you can also feel the taste of cocoa. To all the delights of such a drink, a slight tonic effect is added. So the raw material for coffee grows not only in the tropics.

Acorn-based medicinal drinks are used for a number of diseases:

  1. Acorn juice with honey. Fruits must be plucked from trees in a green form. They are peeled, ground in a meat grinder, juice is squeezed out with a press, and then mixed with honey in proportions of 1 to 1. You need to take this remedy before meals 4 times a day, 2 tbsp. l. Indications for use: anemia, uterine bleeding, nervous disorders.
  2. Infusion of roasted acorns. The fruits are peeled, and then roasted in the oven at a temperature of 175 ° C. Stir occasionally to evenly brown the nuts. After the acorns turn slightly red, they need to be ground into powder. 2 tbsp. l. of such a powder, pour 300 ml of boiling water. After cooling, the drink is filtered and taken 1 tbsp. l. before meals. To improve the taste, milk and honey can be added to it. This remedy must be taken for a long time for the treatment of tuberculosis.
  3. A decoction of acorns is used for cystitis. Crushed fruits in the amount of 1 tbsp. l. you need to pour a glass of hot water, bring to a boil over low heat, cook for 10 minutes. The cooled broth is filtered and drunk evenly in small portions throughout one day.

Thus, acorns are a wonderful source of nutrients that have healing power. They feed forest dwellers and a person. And most importantly, they are the key to the constant renewal of wonderful oak forests.