Are you like me? Is it dangerous to leave your house? Is mowing your lawn becoming an exercise in dodging missiles? Are you woken at in the middle of the night by what sounds like machine gun fire peppering your house? Yes, it’s acorn season again.
If you are fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough depending upon your prospective, oak trees are dropping their ripen fruit in your yard right now and there is nothing you can do about it. Oak trees are in the beech family (Fagaceae). They are often some of the largest trees and can be found all around the world. There are about 800 species of oak trees worldwide with the exception of tropical South America and tropical Africa. There are about 65 native species of oaks to North America and less than a dozen species in the Midwest.
Nearly all oaks are deciduous, which means they drop their leaves each autumn. However in warmer parts of the planet, they are evergreen. All oaks have alternately attached leaves and nearly all have simple toothed or lobed leaves. Male and female flowers are found on the same tree. This means that all oak trees produce a fruit, unlike some tree species that have male flowers on one plant and female flowers on another, leaving one tree without any fruit.
Acorns are technically a hard-shelled, single seeded fruit. All acorns are borne with a cup of many overlapping scales. These scales are how the Bur Oak got its common name. The scales look like a bur.
All species of oak fit into one of two groups—White Oak or Red (sometimes called Black) Oak. Oak trees with leaves that have pointed lobes or tips are in the Red Oak group. Trees with rounded lobes or tips are in the White Oak group. However, the major differences between the two groups are in the timing or maturing of their fruit.
White Oak members produce flowers each spring that result in acorns in the coming autumn. Red Oak members produce flowers in spring but don’t produce acorns until the second autumn. As a result the acorns from the Red Oak group tend to be higher in the bitter tasting tannin while the White Oak acorns have less tannin and are more palatable.
Nearly all oak trees, no matter red or white group, will produce an extremely heavy acorn crop every 5 or 6 years. This is called a mass crop. If you have a dozen or so oak trees like I do, you can plan on having one of those trees producing a mass crop just about every year.
Wildlife such as the Eastern Wild Turkey, White-tailed Deer, squirrels, and even Black Bears depend upon acorns as a major food source. Acorns that are buried by squirrels and not found sprout and begin to grow. This is how many of our future oak trees become planted.
Most species of oak have thick heavy bark that is high in tannin. Tannin leached from the bark has been used in the tanning process of animal skins for hundreds of years. Acorns have also been an important food for people for thousands of years. After gathering and shelling the acorns, the meat was boiled in several changes of water to leach out the bitter tasting tannin. After drying, the acorns were often ground up to make flour. A very nitrous, all-be-it heavy, bread was made with the flour. Acorns were also roasted and eaten on their own. Until next time….