Oak has always been considered a symbol of strength, power, individuality. He prefers places open to the sun. If neighboring trees do not interfere with it , the oak grows into a giant with a wide spreading crown, sometimes reaching a height of over 50 m. When it comes to how the oak blooms, it turns out that few people know what the oak flower looks like, and many people don’t even suspect that the oak is blooming.
There are at least 600 species of oaks. In our area, the most common is oak oak, which has a beautiful spherical crown. Oak is among the trees a long-lived record holder; oaks are known that are over a thousand years old.
If the tree grows freely, the flowers of the oak appear when it reaches the age of twenty, in dense plantations - by about fifty. In spring, oak is in no hurry to produce foliage, usually this happens only by the end of April.
At the same time, the leaves bloom and oak flowers appear. Often, people simply don’t notice them, because in the view of many flowers should be just flowers - large and beautiful. And in oak, they are inconspicuous and, one might even say, inconspicuous.
Male (staminate) oak flowers are more noticeable. They have a yellowish-green color, very small and collected in inflorescences resembling thin earrings. In whole bundles they hang down. Among the leaves they are difficult to notice, in color they merge with young foliage.
Female (pistil) oak flowers are even more difficult to see. In size, they are with a pin head, located on special thin stems, singly or several each. Acorns are then formed on these stems.
When male oak flowers open, their pollen is viable for about 5 days. In favorable weather (sunny and windy), pollination takes place safely, in rainy weather it stops, and when frosts inflorescences can generally crumble. The oak gives good harvests of acorns once every 7-8 years.
Acorns simply adore wild boars. People use them to feed animals; they make a coffee drink from acorns. They are also collected for sowing in order to restore oak groves. Young oak bark is used in pharmacology, it has tannins, and has astringent properties. Oak forests have been cut down for many years in order to produce very valuable wood.
Wood is used where hardness, strength, resistance to environmental influences are needed - in transport, in shipbuilding, in construction. Oak floors, parquet, laminate, furniture are widely used. They are durable, reliable, environmentally friendly, have good energy.
The natural color of the oak has a pleasant golden hue, with dark and light areas of wood, and shades with a greenish or reddish tone. Oak can be processed and allows you to get a variety of colors, from white to almost black wood, where gold, brown, gray shades predominate.
Bleached oak is especially popular . This color in nature has wood only young trees, but over time it darkens. To obtain bleached oak, natural wood is discolored and tinted in the desired color, then varnished or waxed.