It was announced that they were gonna cut some trees along one of my bike road cuz they need space to broaden the car road.
I panicked because that spot is the only place that I know of where winter oaks are growing! Winter oaks are very rare to encounter in the wild (and in gardens too!) And it is estimated that more than 90% of the oaks growing in the low countries are summer oaks, the one other native oak variety. The reason why winter oaks are rare is because in the past summer oaks where favoured and planted en masse because they produce more acorns and those were used to feed the pigs! And those century old practices make it so that most oaks are now summer oaks! That has come back to bite us though since winter oaks are supposedly more resistent to oak processionary caterpillars, which can now devastate entire summer oak forests!
Anyway, since I don´t live too far away and have had some success with summer oak I decided to go pull up some seedlings to at least get some winter oaks to survive in this town! Normally I dont take plants out of the wild (obviously) but since these are doomed to die I made an exception. I started with 2 and will see if I am succesful. If so, I might go try save more. For now I put them in the garden but I´m gonna have to think about where they have the biggest chance of survival in the wild. I do not intend to turn my entire garden in an oak forest!
The differences between a summer and winter oak are small but clear! For example the leaves of the winter oak have a longer stick and are thus standing further away from the branch!
First pic on top shows the adult winter oak branch. You can see that there is some space between the bottom of the leaves and the branch as opposed to the second pic on top whoch shows a summer oak with its leaves ´glued´ to the branch. Personal space please?!
On this third pic you can also see the difference in leaf shape. The summer oak (top) has deeper incisions than the winter oak (bottom). There are also some variations in acorns and the winter oak holds onto its brown leaf much longer in winter.
Really sad that there is no way to save those beautiful adult trees and in general to see this small strip of biodiversity go but I try to be hopeful!
