Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: Gail on June 09, 2019, 05:19:56 PM
-
I've just visited Gateley Hall which is a very beautiful 18th century building near here. They have a gorgeous mature tree which I didn't recognise. The owner says it is a holm oak, but I really don't think so. The leaves varied but were mostly oak-shaped but the fruit is a bitter-tasting berry.
Anyone know what it may be.
[attachimg=1]
[attachimg=2]
-
Mulberry?
-
Might they just be developing galls? (on oak)
-
Don't look like oak leaves.
-
Mulberry?
Mulberry went through my mind but this has clusters of individual berries rather than a multiple fruit, so it is certainly not Morus nigra.
And it doesn't 'feel' right for oak...
-
White mulberry? The leaves look mulberryish.
-
The fruit is quite different though;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_alba#/media/File:Morus-alba.jpg
-
Doesn't look like a Holm oak leaf.
-
Decayed fruit?
-
The fruit looked as though it were just ripening. I didn't try it but my friend said it tasted bitter.
-
Morus rubra? Unripe fruit would be bitter.
-
Doesn't look like mulberry fruit.
The mulberry is a drupe, somewhat like a raspberry.
-
Think the owner might be right, quercus ilex.
-
I cant tell you what it is, but it clearly isn't an oak. All oaks have a variation on the 'cupule with single seed' type fruit (i.e. an acorn). Not a mulberry either (the fruit looks wrong and the tree is way too big). If it didn't have the fruit in the picture I would call it a Turner's Oak which is a hybrid of Q. robur and Q. ilex (the holm oak), but it cant be that. Puzzling...
-
?
-
Wow! those do look like the "fruits" on Gail's photo. They do look "fruitish" rather than the type of gall we see more usually - but I think you may have cracked that one, Giles!
-
They are called currant galls, caused by parasitisation of the male catkin.
-
For those who want to know a bit more : https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/spangle-gall-wasp (https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/spangle-gall-wasp) or in french : https://www.insectes-net.fr/galles/galle4.htm (https://www.insectes-net.fr/galles/galle4.htm)
-
Well, that is amazing! Not sure what Neil will say when I tell him he was tasting a gall...
The tree was covered in them.
-
;D splendid!
-
Well, that is amazing! Not sure what Neil will say when I tell him he was tasting a gall...
The tree was covered in them.
Maybe there are some things it is better not to know??
-
in fact on the last picture, it looks like a Oak. we do not see fruit, but red female flowers, which resemble those of an oak and clusters of green male flowers.
maybe Quercus pubescent?