Oak Tree

The Oak is a hardwood, and is also what is known as a deciduous tree, which means that in the autumn it loses its leaves.

The oak is a broad range tree and it is hard to find a tree which has a wider spread geographically. There are very few places in which one type or another of oak tree do not grow.

Oaks have broad leaves and are widely spreading in their branches and leaves. A mature oak tree can drink up to 50 or more gallons of water per day. Trees take up water through their root system. Some of the water evaporates from the which is called transpiration.

Oak Tree

Oak trees can start making acorns about 20 years old, but will at times go all the way to 50 years old before they produce one.. By the time the tree is 70 to 80 years old it will produce thousands of acorns.

The oak trees produce acorns once a year during the fall. Acorn production varies year to year and normally alternates.

Not even the healthiest and largest oak can accumulate enough food and energy to produce strong crops two years in succession. Extremely strong acorn productions might happen once every four or five years.

Acorn production will increase year after year; following a similar pattern as the size of the tree’s canopy. When the tree reaches about 100 years of age, it starts slowing down until it reaches a yearly production of about 2,200 acorns per year.

Various animals may make their home in the oak tree and use the acorns as a winter fodder, among them squirrels, who make nests high in the sheltering branches, usually in a slot where two or three branches meet;

Oak trees may live to be more than 200 years old. The very largest tree that had been recorded was living in Wye Mills in the state of Maryland in the United States.

It was thought to be in excess of 400 years, and measuresd 32 feet around, when a wind blew it down in 2002.

The tree was nearly 105 feet tall, and its top spread over 100 feet.

Another which is larger yet, lives in Mandeville, Louisiana, and it is estimated that the tree there is currently over 1000 years old, with a height of 150 feet.

Find out more about Oak Trees over at Wikipedia »