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The oak tree

Time for a tale – Jack and the dancing trees

This story about oak trees is a favourite, told to me by Stanley Robertson

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In Scotland you might see two different oak trees – the English oak and the sessile oak.

How d’you spot the difference? The English oak has bunches of leaves with no stalks with its acorns on stalks, the sessile is the opposite.

These trees can live to a great age and if they have room, will grow up to 50m, expanding out to give a lovely canopy.

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The oak can be found all over Europe; on the west coast of Scotland forests of oak are particularly dense. These wonderful trees can support approximately 500 types of insects. When the leaves fall they form a rich rotting carpet that provides food for many.

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Oak has hardwood which has been used for centuries in shipbuilding and house building. Near where I live in Aberdeen, King’s College was built in 1495 on marshland on a raft of oak. Beautiful furniture and long-lasting barrels are also made from oak.

A wee tale….

In my childhood home we had an oak chest, inscribed with the date 1556. It was blackened with age.

One summer I was investigating my ancestry. I went down to Newcastle under Lyme, near Manchester. I visited the church where my mother’s ancestors, the Thicknes family, had been farmers. There was a chapel dedicated to the family in this church, and there, beside it, was a blackened oak chest, which looked exactly like the piece in my home. It gave me quite a thrill. As I put my hand on the smooth wood, it felt like I was touching and connecting with those in my past.

Oak tannin from the bark tans leather and even oak sawdust is used to flavour foods in the smoking process.

Find out more here: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/english-oak/

The oak tree

The tree, bark, buds and leaves

Oak trees grow tall and magnificently in many places.

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The warm brownish bark is uniformly fissured, sometimes developing plates in older trees:

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Oak buds are scaly and grow in clusters, looking small and oval through winter. In spring they elongate and the layers change from brown to green:

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The ‘oval-cloud’ shaped leaves and lamb’s tail catkins emerge at the same time:

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Young leaves can be pale, almost orangey-yellow in colour:

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The fruit

Acorns are not a yeary fruit. it takes an oak 50 years to develop fruit and often they will only bear fruit every few years. Acorns develop over the summer and ripen by October:

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In autumn leaves change colour:

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I have always looked on the oak as a beautiful climbing tree:

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Thanks for joining me, see you next time 🙂

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Time for a tale –

The Poor Man’s Clever Daughter, from the telling of Peter Stewart

Hi abody, today we’re looking at the alder, one of our native trees.

Alder trees favour growing on or near river banks and marshy areas.

These trees are a vital part of Scotland’s regeneration of river areas.

For many years and in many areas farming has removed the treeline – the ‘green-lifeline’ from our riversides.

I’d always assumed it was natural for fields to stretch up to a river’s edge. But I’ve learned otherwise.

Continue reading →

Hi Folks 🙂

Today’s tree is the siller birk, or silver birch tree.

Where I was brought up, there was a ‘queen’ birch tree in my garden, with fronds like hair, that glowed in the light. She grew taller than all the other trees and I loved looking at her through all the seasons.

Time for a tale – how the birch tree came:

 

Silver birch – how we can use it

Birch bark

The bark naturally peels off the trunk and makes great kindling:

If you want kindling, take only a little – every tree needs its bark like you need skin

If you look round a birch woodland, some trees will have fallen and the heartwood rotted away, yet the startling white bark remains: The bark is resilient and can be made into bowls, baskets and other useful implements

Birch wood

This tree has beautiful light, straight grain and can be used for making furniture. In the past the hardwood was used for making bobbins, reels and spools for the cotton industry. Check out this site for more info: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/silver-birch/

Birch sap

The sap can be tapped from the tree in early March, when winter is waning. It is a refreshing, wholesome water that can be drunk straight from the tree. You can take a little from one tree – but then move on to another. Watch here to see how it can be done simply, without long-lasting damage to the tree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zc6M5nNNFs

 

The silver birch tree

The tree

The younger tree’s trunk shines white, the older tree’s marked by dark indented areas

The bark

Silver birch bark has flat white areas  broken by darker areas. As the bark ages, it gradually thickens and darkens from the base upwards:

Silver birch bark

Time for another tale – an Ojibwe legend, ‘How the silver birch got its burns’:

 

 

Challenge – can you make up your own tale about the birch tree?

The buds, flowers, leaves and fruit

The small, neat buds of the silver birch lie alternately up the twigs and branches of the tree. In spring the male catkins develop on many of the branches:

As the spring moves into summer, the neat heart-shaped leaves have appeared, the hanging male catkins have released their pollen and the upright female catkins have been pollinated:

In autumn the female catkins have many seeds on each ‘shelf’, which are released into the wind as the catkin dries or falls to the ground: Autumn catkins

A birch seed

In autumn, birch trees glow:

With silver-white bark and heart-shaped leaves

On heather moors, or windswept braes

In forest of pine or rowan glades

You rise, slim, elegant, queen of the trees

Thanks for joining me, see you next time 🙂