The cup that holds its acorn looks as though it is made of moss, with long curled hairy scales
Turkey oak. Native oaks have smooth warty cups.
Nature · Trees
Turkey oak
Neophyte (introduced 18th century) · deciduous to 30 m · parks, roadsides and woodland edges
Quercus cerris — Fagaceae
A large south-east European oak brought to Britain as an ornamental in the 18th century, now naturalised in woods and along roadsides beside the native English and sessile oaks. Its mossy acorn cup is the giveaway. It is also the necessary host of the knopper gall wasp, which damages the acorns of native oaks.
How to know it
How to spot them
- ▸Acorn cup covered in long, curled, hairy scales like a hat of moss — the key mark against English and sessile oak
- ▸Leaves deeply and irregularly lobed with short pointed tips, rough above and felted beneath; some lobes narrow, some rounded
- ▸Acorns ripen 18 months after pollination and are orange at the base
- ▸Winter buds in clusters, with scales that extend beyond the bud
- ▸Dark grey, deeply fissured bark, often streaked orange in the cracks near the base
- ▸Look-alike: English oak has a smooth, warty-scaled cup and rounded lobes with no points.
How to know it
A large oak whose acorns take 18 months to mature and are orange at the base
Turkey oak.
Leaves with deep, short-pointed lobes, rough above and felted beneath, on an oak introduced in the 1700s
Turkey oak.
It is the necessary host for one generation of the knopper gall wasp, Andricus quercuscalicis
Turkey oak. The wasp then lays in the acorns of English oak.
In 1998 the Ministry of Defence ordered all of this oak felled on its UK land, because of the wasp it hosts
Turkey oak (Woodland Trust).
Its timber warps and cracks and weathers badly, though it was once used for wainscoting
Turkey oak.
Quick-fire facts
- •Quercus cerris — cerris is the classical Latin name of a kind of oak; Turkey and Austrian oak refer to its south-east European range
- •Introduced as an ornamental in the 18th century (Woodland Trust); it now sets seed and is naturalised
- •Knopper galls, caused by Andricus quercuscalicis, deform native oak acorns; the wasp needs Turkey oak catkins to complete its life cycle
- •The Ministry of Defence ordered all Turkey oaks felled on its UK bases in 1998 (Woodland Trust)
- •Less widely planted now because of the gall wasp
- •Poor timber, prone to cracking and warping; historically used for wainscoting, and as firewood when well seasoned
- •Provides pollen for bees and acorns for birds and small mammals, though less valuable than native oaks
- •Native from France across to the Balkans and Asia Minor
Drill it — 6 cards
1 / 6new card
Sources
- Woodland Trust — Turkey oak (Quercus cerris)