Oaks and acorns

 We all know Oak trees but how often do you really look closely at them.  They are home to a huge number of species, with at least 70 species of gall wasp alone! I spotted these cherry galls on the underside of a fallen leaf today, which made me look a little more closely.

The wasps that cause the tree to produce these galls doesn't look anything like the type of wasp that we are familiar with. It is an inconspicuous black insect that doesn't sting humans!

Most of our oak trees in Sussex are English or Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) . These have acorns on stalks but the leaves have little or no stalks. Acorns are ripening here at the moment, although that varies with local conditions.  Our road is covered in piles of ripe acorns but these trees  still have plenty of green ones still attached.

However, have you ever noticed an Oak tree with longer stalks on the leaves and no stalks on the acorns? These are Sessile Oaks (Quercus petraea.)  There are a number of these where I walked this afternoon (and they do actually hybridise with Pedunculate Oaks which makes things a bit more difficult. It didn't help that I couldn't see any acorns in their cups around the trees that I thought were Sessile and that there were not even any leaves low down!

Not that it bothered me: there is nothing better than the sun shining through the leaves in a woodland.  I just love staring up at the sky (which by that time was blue, rather than the grey of this morning) and watching the leaves moving in the breeze. So calming!