A species
English oak
Quercus robur
One tree that houses hundreds of neighbours.
You and the english oak last shared an ancestor about 1.8 billion years ago (on 28 July, if life's history were one year).
One English oak can be a whole neighbourhood for wildlife, sheltering hundreds of species, including insects, birds and fungi, on and around it. Across Britain's native oaks, scientists have listed more than 2,300 wildlife species, and the oldest giants hold the most. Surprisingly, this giant is a flowering plant, like the sunflower shown beside it on the tree. It is a member of the beech and oak family. Its hanging catkins are bunches of male flowers, and its acorns are the fruits.
A mature oak is big and broad, commonly about 30 to 35 metres tall, as tall as a ten-storey building. It has a short, stout trunk with grey-brown bark cut into deep ridges, and wide-spreading branches that form a dome. Its glossy leaves are small for an oak, with smooth rounded bumps. They turn brown in autumn and sometimes hang on into winter. In spring the wind carries pollen between the tiny male and female flowers.
These trees can live for more than 500 years. Their acorns ripen in autumn and dangle on long stalks. Jays carry many away, planting the oaks of the future.
Two thousand trees in one ship
In the days of wooden warships, building one large ship could use the timber of about 2,000 oak trees.
At home across Europe
It grows across most of Europe, with outposts in North Africa and western Asia, from sea level in the north to about 1,300 metres up in the Alps, often as a leading tree of mixed woods that lose their leaves in autumn.
Bark, barrels and animal feed
People have used its bark to turn animal skins into leather, its acorns to feed farm animals, and its timber to make barrels that add flavour to drinks.