Oak, also known as oak or quercus. A generalized name for plants in the family Crustacea, including species in the genera Quercus, Cycadophyta, and Coleus, usually referring to the genus Quercus, not specifically to a particular species of tree. The genus Quercus has 615 species, of which 450 are from the subgenus Quercus and 188 are from the subgenus Quercus glauca. Its fruit is called acorns, and the wood is known generically as oak.
The oak tree is the world's largest flowering plant; life span is very long, it has a high life expectancy of 400 years.
Deciduous or evergreen trees, up to 25 to 30 meters high or more. Bark dark gray-brown, slightly smooth. Branchlets brown, glabrous.
Winter buds long ovate, 3 to 5 mm long, glabrous, bud scales dark brown, numerous, imbricate. Leaf blade ovate or elliptic, 10 to 20 centimeters long, 7 to 10 centimeters wide, apically acuminate, base cuneate, leaf margin 5 to 7 pinnatipartite on each side, lobes finely dentate, leaf surface dark green, leaf surface abaxially light green, glabrous or with tufts of hairs in the vein axils; petiole 2.5 to 5 centimeters long, glabrous with age.
Male inflorescences open at the same time as the leaves, in several clusters; female flowers solitary or 2 to 3 borne on a raceme about 1 cm long.
Shell cupular, enclosing 1/4 to 1/3 of the nut, 1.5 to 1.8 centimeters in diameter, 1 to 1.2 centimeters high; bracteoles triangular, densely imbricate, glabrous and shiny. Nut long ellipsoid, ca. 1.5 cm in diam. and 2 to 2.5 cm high, light brown, thinly tomentose, glabrescent; tip rounded, with a stylopodium; umbilicus flat or retuse. Fl. April to May, fr. following Sept. Resistant to water and moisture. Nut contains 46% starch, 10% tannin, 12% oil, 7% protein.
Growing Conditions Editorial Voice
Resistant to dryness, heat and water humidity, frost and urban pollution, wind resistant, prefers well-drained soils, but can grow in clayey soils. Oak prefers sandy loam or well-drained slightly acidic soils, is resistant to environmental pollution, and is adaptable to infertile, arid, acidic or alkaline soils. Oak grows at a moderate rate, growing up to 60 centimeters per year on moist, well-drained soil.
Distribution range
China's Liaoning Xiongyue, Shandong Tai'an, Qingdao, the western mountainous areas of Hebei, the western mountainous areas of Hubei (Enshi Prefecture, Changyang area), Henan are distributed; Ankang is cultivated.
Main values
Wood: the interior is filled with many honeycomb structures, the interior of the honeycomb is full of air, so the oak is very flexible. Oak itself is very wear-resistant, and many of the engine's cylinder gaskets use oak as a raw material.
In addition, oak is moisture-proof, insect-proof, can ensure that the wine in a dark and humid cellar will not pass with the years. This all-natural material, which is not harmful to the human body, has been widely used in the production of wine and champagne corks for more than 100 years.
The fruit is a nut, furry at one end and naked at the other, and is food for animals such as squirrels.