Interesting Oak

[Klenchblaize]

What do you know about this oak:

Cheers

 

[Bushwhacker]

Knopper galls.

 

[Peter_t]

it has galls on it which is caused by a wasp which goes inside a young acorn and beleve it or not changes its DNA and creates galls. that particular type is the knopper gall

pete

 

[Night Phoenix]

it has galls on it which is caused by a wasp which goes inside a young acorn and beleve it or not changes its DNA and creates galls. that particular type is the knopper gall

pete

Thats really interesting! Never seen galls like that

 

[Lupin Rider]

so thats what i get all over my lawn!!!

 

[Dynamite_1303]

It seems to be a really great year for them. I've seen galls of the round type as well on the same tree .... first time I've ever seen them outside of a picture. Am going to have a go at making oak gall ink.

 

[VirusKiller]

Excellent. I saw these at Kew Gardens last weekend on an "English oak" and was most confused!

 

[Peter_t]

some people think its a bad thing, it is not native and has come about since the introduction of the turkey oak (not sure when). the gall wasp needs the turkey oak as part of its life cycle and there was talk of eradicating the turkey oak in the new forest to get rid of the knopper gall.

pete