Video: Why we need to preserve maritime forests

While collecting cores from oak trees on Fire Island National Park, Nicole Davi, a dendrochronologist who works at the Climate School's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, explains the critical role maritime forests play in ...

More and more emerging diseases threaten trees around the world

Diseases are among the major causes of tree mortality in both forests and urban areas. New diseases are continually being introduced, and pathogens are continually jumping to new hosts, threatening more and more tree species. ...

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Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus ( /ˈkwɜrkəs/; Latin "oak tree"), of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus. The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cold latitudes to tropical Asia and the Americas.

Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with a lobed margin in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with a smooth margin. The flowers are catkins, produced in spring. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a cup-like structure known as a cupule; each acorn contains one seed (rarely two or three) and takes 6–18 months to mature, depending on species. The live oaks are distinguished for being evergreen, but are not actually a distinct group and instead are dispersed across the genus.

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