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Sessile or Common Oak: Dair Gheetach: Quercus Petraea.


The oak has grown in Ireland for 7,000 years. It can grow up to 40 feet and live for 800 years. The oak supports a greater number of species of wildlife than any other tree - up to 500, many of them moths.

Acorns are not produced until 40 years of age. oak timber was exploited for architecture and shipbuilding. Trunk: stout, often short and burred. Bar fissured, brownish grey. Crown: Usually broad, branches stout, wide spreading. Twigs: grey/brown, usually hairless. Leaves: alternate along stem, 5-1 2cm with 4-7 pairs of blunt, unequal lobes, base having two ear-like lobes, dull green, hairless above, stalk 1-5mm. Flowers: male and females on the same tree. Male flowers are in clustered catkins, 2-4cms. Fruit: nut (acorn), oblong or elliptical, brown, a cup covering the nut, on a stalk 2-8 cms.

Compared with ash, oak played a minor role in Irish traditions. As most of the native woodlands were felled before the 1 8th century, many of the older trees now standing in Ireland may have been planted. oak timbers were widely used in prehistoric times. The ancient trackways, or tochair, fragments of which are seen on Tochair Phadraig were constructed from oak logs.




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