Sessile oak (Quercus sessilis)
Appearance: A fairly stately tree that sheds its leaves for the winter, with a height of up to approx 40 meters. The crown is rather high and broad, in free-standing trees – thick, compact and evenly leaved.
The trunk is straight and visible up to the center of the crown. The boughs are also fairly smooth and steep. radially depart from the site of the first branch.
Initially, the bark of young trees is still quite smooth, later gray or brownish gray, densely covered with delicate furrows and cracks. Slender shoots, brown-gray or gray-purple, naked or slightly "frosted"”. Thick donuts, ovate, 6-8 mm in length, with numerous clearly- or red-brown scales, clustered at the ends of the twigs.
The leaves have 8-12 cm in length and about 5 cm wide, they are obovate, rounded front, and wedge-shaped at the base. Quite regularly and almost symmetrically bi-sided divided into 5-9 roundish pairs, not too deeply indented flaps. Matt and dark green on the top, brighter underneath, both sides naked, thick and rather flat, on a short tail length 1-2 centimeters. Acorns sprout in groups after 2-6, they are sessile or very short (5-10 mm) stalks, they mature in the first year. A cup with a width of approx 1,5 cm covers only more or less 1/4 acorn.
Habitat: Sessile oak prefers looser, usually medium-deep stony and clay soils in areas, where winters are mild. It is an important forest tree of the lower mountains and highlands.
Occurrence: Widely distributed in central and southern Europe, and in places forming tree stands, also cultivated in forests.
Flowering period: Maj.
General remarks The bark of almost all oak species is rich in tannin, which was once widely used in tanning. The tannin content in the bark of young oaks is particularly high. They were stripped on the spot and stripped of special knives, and the removed bark had to be dried for some time before being delivered to special mills (as a tanning wood) And from there to the tannery. Due to the great demand for young oak trunks, the felling sequence in the oak forests near the village was quite short. As a characteristic form of economy, a special economic type of forest developed from this, called "tanning forest”, focused on debarking oaks, this type of forest is present in Central Europe only exceptionally in small areas, as a relic of old times.
Oak wood due to its compactness, hardness and durability is one of the most sought-after domestic noble types of wood. Based on their structure, they are classified as ring-vascular woods.