Rediscovering our oak collection
Follow our recent mapping earlier this year, we are now in a position to look a little closer at our collection and for the first time list the individual species we have.
One group, or genus, we were keen to look at first was our oaks. Oaks come in many shapes and sizes and there are over 600 species across the world. Whilst we knew we only had a fraction of these, we did also keep coming across different specimens hidden away around the arboretum so were keen to find out more.
As it turns out we have 16 species, ranging from classic common oaks (Q. robur) to evergreen varieties like the California live oak (Q. agrifolia). With our new found ability to locate every specimen we decided to create a visitor map showing the best example of each species.
We were particularly please to find out we had a healthy scarlet oak (Q. coccinea), as our previously known scarlet oak had died in recent years. This new specimen is also very large and was in an area of rhododendron we had previously never ventured in to. Seeing it now we wonder why it hadn’t been noticed already!
Other highlights were a burr oak (Q. macrocarpa), which had been rescued by volunteers last year. This particular specimen also has very large leaves, though no sight of the large acorns that give it it’s name (from ancient greek: makrós “large” and karpós “fruit”). Also a Caucasian Oak (Q. macranthera) which had previously gone unnoticed, and a ‘purpurea’ cultivar of common oak which should display purple leaves in the spring, though we haven’t noticed any, which may in part be due to it’s shaded out position and high branches – something to look out for next year.
Our full list of oak species is:
- Red Oak (Q. rubra)
- Pyrenean Oak (Q. pyrenaica)
- Sessile Oak (Q. petraea)
- Hungarian Oak (Q. frainetto)
- White Oak (Q. alba)
- Downy Oak (Q. pubescens)
- Common Oak (Q. robur)
- Sessile Oak ‘mespilifolia’ (Q. petraea ‘mespilifolia’)
- Swamp White Oak (Q. bicolor)
- Burr Oak (Q. macrocarpa)
- Caucasian Oak (Q. macranthera)
- Common Oak ‘purpurea’ (Q. robur ‘purpurea’)
- Scarlet Oak (Q. coccinea)
- Turkey Oak (Q. cerris)
- Kermes Oak (Q. coccifera)
- California Live Oak (Q. agrifolia)
This autumn we are pleased to be beginning a new phase of planting at the arboretum and are hoping to add to our oak collection (from one of the other 584 oak species!). We will be starting with a community tree planting Open Day on the 12th of October – so come and join us and help plant the next generation of trees!