Gathered a few rather special acorns

[Nice65]

This is The Queen Elizabeth 1st Oak, apparently the Queen stood beneath this tree with an arrow waiting for a deer to be driven her way. It’s around 800-1000 years old and has fairly few acorns, as is usual for the older trees.

I picked a handful while I was there today, I have friends who share my interest who I’ll be sending some to. A good pedigree indeed.

 

[demographic]

Gathered a few acorns today, bunged em in the earth in a few pots and shortly after the dog ambles into the house munching on something.

Cheeky git was scoffing the acorns.

He's walked past thousands of the things while on walks but I pick a few dozen and all of a sudden its food.

Looking on the bright side, as acorns are pretty big I get a good ratio of viable ones.

 

[Nice65]

Some super long acorns today. Just the one tree in a row of semi mature English Oaks is producing these odd ones.

 

[TeeDee]

Some super long acorns today. Just the one tree in a row of semi mature English Oaks is producing these odd ones.

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Not wishing to be that guy , but are these considered unusual??? I see quite a lot like this. Is it just a sub species of divergent thing?

 

[Nice65]

Not wishing to be that guy , but are these considered unusual??? I see quite a lot like this. Is it just a sub species of divergent thing?

No idea, just different from the rest of the trees. There’s huge variation in acorns which is more obvious this year. Some trees are loaded with thousands for little acorns, some are whoppers but fewer. More of a ‘look at these acorns I found’ observation than a question about mysterious long acorns. There are trees literally dripping with acorns, bending like overloaded plum branches.

Sweet Chestnut also, but the nuts are tiny. Zoom in on the second pic, never seen so many

 

[nigelp]

Bumper year for acorns. The pigs are out in the New Forest Monday for annual panage and will be happy ‘as’.

 

[Pattree]

@Nice65
Those look like Peduncalate Oak acorns. Do the leaves have a short stem?

Sessile Oak leaves don’t have this stem (peduncle) and their ancorns are shorter.

That said, there is enough variation in the acorns to overlap and they do hybridise.

 

[Broch]

It's the other way around - Penduncalate oaks have very short leaf stalks (5mm) if any and long stalks on the acorns; Sessile oaks have longer 10 - 20mm stalks on the leaves and no stalks on the acorns. There are other diagnostics of the leaf shape.

To be honest, I have long and short acorns on Sessile oaks - even off the same tree. Acorn shape and size do not appear to be identification features despite what some of the books say.

 

[demographic]

With luck this will work as it's about how trees manipulate squirrels to abandon their acorns by producing small amounts some years them bumper crops other years.
It's that Steve Mould bloke again.

 

[Danceswithhelicopters]

In picked up an cone from Lone Pine on the ridge on Gallipoli which has opened up and dropped it's seeds.

 

[Nice65]

I’ve picked up a load of acorns from this majestic old Oak today. If anyone wants a few sent, I’ll happily post some for the price of postage (I’ve sent 3 lots out at £3.15 a go, it adds up a bit). I’ll send a dated pic as above with each.

As this is on the Tree Councils list of Great British Trees, it would be handy to know the locations of the plantings.