German tribes considered them as holyIts crazy how many fruits they give, thats feeding so many animals we can use later.Their leaves also dung the land around, oaks get minerals deep from the soil.Today is a mast year here as you can seePeople used to let pigs out in the forest to eat those and insects and it was way more healthy then pig farming today.
>>2767674acorns r edible the wood was used in viking ships i thinkthe celts also likes them
>>2767771>acorns r edibleHardlyMore a survival food, you need to soak them in water for a long time to get rid of most toxins. The natural nut tree was the hazelnut.
>>2767674Gary Oaks are the only thing native and the rest can fuckoff. Hemlock, Redwood or GTFO.
>>2768482Im not american
>>2768482I have about 30 different species of native oak here in a few square miles. The biggest oak in the world is an American Oak. Here's a nice big stud Laurel Oak
>>2768628And a big massive single stem Live Oak
>>2768628>>2768630Op here weird to see these american oaks
>>2767674
>>2768598You can't ignore his girth.
>>2769073Those ones are a bit funky, with all the lichen hanging from them, but America used to be heavily covered by oak savannas distributed in the plains and Midwest. Much of the savanna land was converted into farms in the 1800s, however. Nowadays many of the oaks have been cut down, and the savannas built over.
>>2767674I have 20 large pin oaks that provide me with a good mulch/compost source
im partial to white oaks as i have heard their acorns are best for making flour out of . along with spiritual significance. i ended up buying a shit ton of oak seeds. white oak, swamp white oak (they say its native to my area) , and chinkapin oak/allegehney valley oak. i only got three oak saplings growing in my room. i didnt have any counter measures for the dickass varmints getting at my shit. all the trees i tried growing only like three chestnut trees survived.
>>2767674>German tribes considered them as holyThat's christian bullshit we make fun of to this day. The reason oak (and walnut) trees were chosen for meetings and rituals is much simpler: grass and weeds don't grow well underneath them, so you can sit comfortably without having to worry about bugs or thorns.Nowadays, we know this is because the leaves release acid and basically poison the soil around the tree, but back then, it was just something people were aware of without knowing the reason.
>>2770419Southern Live Oak is the King of Oaks. But I'd be lying if I said that Swamp Chestnut Oak doesn't have a unique appeal.
>>2770419Also I've transplanted all kinds of oaks maybe a few dozen different ones. The swamp chestnut oak was really finicky. The only one I simply could NOT get to take after numerous attempts was Willow Oak. Also pic rel is a nice big stud multistem live oak.
>>2770655Nice shaped Live Oak
>>2770656I think this is Laurel Oak if I remember right.
>>2770657Spooky shaped Live Oak
>>2770659Another nice big Live Oak
>>2768482Love Gary Oaks out here in British columbia. I also picked up some wood at Oak Harbor in Washington state to do some wood turning on from a guy who had one fall over in a storm and he's stupidly chopped it up for firewood
>>2768628Laurel oaks are so basedThere are some white oaks near my house that are over 4-500 years old. I counted the rings on a few fallen for reference. Based tree thread bumped.
>>2771898Yeah I'm a big fan of laurel oak. Very under appreciated I think because they aren't as long lived. They are really similar to live oak except always single stemmed. Like a mix between water oak and live oak in a way.
>>2767674big old oaks are also a sign that a forest is healthy and biodiverse and close to its natural state
>>2770397Were wildfires enough to create these savannas or was it prescribed burns?
>>2767771ancient european peoples made acorn bread, theres huge remains from discared batches that got burntas long as you roast them or boil them they become edible afaik. Some acorns are edible as if but i wouldnt risk it if you dont know which are and which arent edible
>>2772223Nta. And idk about other places, but here is a natural upland longleaf grassland maintained by burns.
>>2767674They're cool.
>>2767824You can long-soak a staple food, but anything you have to long-soak blows ass in a survival situation.
>>2772223It’s hard to say for certain. Prior to the 1400s, there was a lot of native impact on the land, propagation of valuable species, culling of less valuable species, management for game production, etc, basically everywhere in the Americas getting above 20 inches of rain per year (so including oak savanna), but the native population cratered in the late 15th century due to successive epidemics (starting with Norwegian Plague spread from Nordic colonies, and to include smallpox, measles, Rubella, etc), so by the time Europeans started to document the interior of the continent in the early to mid 17th century, these works had been lying largely fallow for centuries, or were being improperly maintained by peoples who had displaced the peoples who had been living in a given place for millennia (the Ojibwe, for example, fled the Norwegian Plague in the Canadian Maritimes and wiped out Michigan’s Old Copper Culture and displaced the Lakota from the woodlands to the prairie, between ~1425 and ~1500).
>>2769084
>>2772484:)
Burr oak/ mossy cup oak used to be all over the east coast of the U.S.Largest acorn in North America (like golf ball size).Because it's such a good wood for construction it was used for wagon toggles and axles by settlers.But it's extremely slow growing so it was virtually wiped out.The earliest they produce acorns is at 35 years and typically not until 50 years.Even at 35 they look like baby trees, they can have just 6" diameter trunks at that age.I have a friend that sends acorns from Texas and I pot them and then plant the saplings after they're about 3 years old to reestablish a population in their native range.
>>2772543Live Oak puts Bur Oak to shame as a building material
>>2767771>acorns r edibleYeah, technically.I tried making acorn coffee. Got a decent load, left them to dry on a platter. Over time, I noticed grubs (maggots, acorn weevils) started appearing on the platter from the acorns. Ended up tossing them out.With walnuts, you can do the water trick (floating = OK, sinking = grub or rotten). Any anons know if that works with acorns?
>>2772592Sure, for most things, but burr oak isn’t as particular for where it grows.
