If your oak tree yields more than 5,000 acorns a season, hang on to it

A prolific oak at maturity may yield about 15,000 acorns in a good year; an average oak, about 5,000. Oaks ( Quercus spp .) are members of the beech family and include over 90 species in North America. Like the beeches, they develop fruit in the form of nutlets that for the oaks, we call acorns. The shape and dimension of acorns and their caps are very characteristics of individual species and can be used to identify the trees. An added advantage of knowing the acorns is that they are available for easy inspection once they fall to the ground. Another way to get a clue as to the identity of an oak is to note whether the tree is holding both large, maturing fruit and small, developing acorns. If it is, it is a member of the red oak group which includes red, black, pin and scarlet oak. The members of the white oak group have acorns that mature in one year and will therefore not have mature and immature fruit present at the same time.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photo is courtesy of Paul Wray of Iowa State University.

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