Quercus

Yesterday, after three days of brutal winds during which the messmate and peppermint on the hillsides seethed and boiled in protest and the big roadside pines roared as only they can, a lull came from nowhere in the morning. The sun shone and all was eerily still as I pulled up my van and got out under Huit's large oak tree. Huit is on holiday and I'm looking after his chooks. I looked up into the dome of the tree, admiring the pale green new leaves clinging to the twigs like millions of soft butterflies. A bird whistled from the trees behind Huit's shed. I whistled back imitating, and an exchange of whistles followed for a minute or two as the song came closer, till the grey shrike-thrush landed in the oak above my head, then flitted closer still, to about 10 feet above, head cocked with curiosity.

The bird flew away after a minute or two, then almost immediately a group of chittering thornbills worked their way through the tree, followed in turn by a pair of eastern spinebills. I like that about trees and birds. They have no concept of nationality or indigenousness. I thought this the other day when a thornbill came into the the shop at the farm and worked away in a bunch of mixed flowers and foliage waiting to be picked up by a customer. At first we thought a mouse had got stuck in the bunch as we noticed the flowers and leaves moving. The dear little thing was enticed by the mini knifofias. We gently herded it back outside.

Huit planted the oak, grown from an acorn, when he first moved to his Gembrook property about 35 years ago. He likes the tree. It gives his vehicles and bedroom window good shade in summer, protection from the north winds, is fire safe, and being deciduous it allows light through in the dreary winter. It's of the English oak variety, Quercus robur, but of course it would not be a pure strain, no doubt having hybridized, as oaks and other trees do when they are so proficient at growing from seed and surviving. There are 600 species of oak in the world, but the legend of strength started with the English oak. If I recall correctly, I learned at school that the might of the British empire was largely due to the superior strength of the English oak timber, giving the British ships a critical advantage in naval warfare over their Spanish, Potugese, French, and Dutch rivals.

Oak trees have been large in my mind lately. How could they not, when they are so spectacular as I see them every day walking. Since returning from Lakes Entrance, the many oaks shooting new leaves have been striking in Gembrook's main street and surrounds. They're a great asset for the town.

And last month when the big cold snap came, being low on firewood, I brought some home from the farm to tide me over. It was oak from a large tree that we'd removed a couple of years ago, a tree that Meredith grew from an acorn she picked up under a Quercus robur in the Melbourne Botanical gardens in 1971. The parent tree was planted by King Edward 7th (whose reign was from 1901-1911 I think). Rabbits bit the young tree in half shortly after it was planted at the farm and it grew multi-trunked and of poor form, becoming massive and dominating the garden, allowing nothing to thrive underneath and taking all the moisture in summer. It had to go. The wood, having been stored under cover, hard and dry, made good heat. Nostalgic evenings they were that week by the hot fire.

Meredith planted a number of oaks; English, Turkey, Portugese, red, and pinoaks. She grew them from acorns she'd gathered, the pinoaks from the tree in our front yard in Mt. Waverley. They got too big for their situation, and one by one have been removed from the front garden, except the Portugese which is a large stately tree in good position. We've planted some red oaks, pin oaks and cork oaks down the back where they can do the big oak tree thing. I selected the red and pinoaks from a nursery for their good autumn colour, planning to use them for autumn foliage, but after we put them in the ground, about fifteen years ago, they grew like mad and only a couple of them have the good colour they showed when restricted to pots.

There are some excellent oaks in Nobelius Park at Emerald; reds, pinoaks, evergreens, mostly planted by Gus Ryberg. I planted three white oaks, Quercus alba, apparently quite rare and donated by an oak tree specialist, in NP a few years ago. Rabbits destroyed one but two are thriving. The leaves are a rich purple in autumn. My book says of white oak- "the classic oak of America, native from Maine to Texas. Wide, spreading." Also, "it's acorns are reasonably sweet to eat". I can't wait to try them when the trees are big enough to produce acorns. And to grow some.

A worthy tree of the week. The oak tree. Native of Europe, America and Asia, and as happy as a pig in mud in Australia.