Oak flowers

Oak flowers ….

Many of our Spring Spectaculars are provided by trees. The procession of white blossom on the hedgerows begins early on with cherry plum or myrobalan. Blackthorn follows and the trio is completed just when late spring merges into summer by the familiar hawthorn. The Japanese are famous for their near worship of cherry blossom while here many suburban streets are at their colourful best when our own cherries in many varieties open their petals.

Those petals were not designed solely for our delight. The real purpose is to attract pollinating insects so that the trees can then get on with the main task of the summer which is to develop seed.

I have a special affection for the English oak with such a profusion of flowers they are beyond counting and almost certainly beyond our imagination. Yet this home-grown wonder is generally overlooked and often misunderstood. The key is that the oak does not depend upon insects to act as go-betweens or agents for pollination. Oaks, like willows, birches and hazels cast innumerable millions of grains of pollen into the wind so that even if most are wasted a few will reach the female flowers to fertilize them.

As oak leaves begin to unfurl on the twigs, so do curtains of hanging threads bearing little green bundles of pollen sacs. When fully ripened, the sacs open and even the slightest breeze which the pollen grains away, each to take its chance in the wider world. These male flowers are frequently mistaken for part of the leafing process and so are disregarded. The waiting females sit at the end of short growths at the ends of twigs. Although very tiny, their bright red colour gives them away.