There's always a crisis out there in the natural world. If it isn't that the skylark is threatened with extinction, it's the passing of some species of fish due to the depredations of the fleets of - well, name your own delinquent country. Then there are trees. We did have a real disaster with the elms. Are they coming back just a little? Now the reputable BBC Wildlife tells us that European oaks are threatened. And indeed from a condition that can kill in a matter of years. There is a full-page picture of a mighty oak with its top branches bare of leaves. Is this a new plague like the elm disease or, the article, after scaring the hell out of some forestry owners, suggests is this just over-reaction to what, after all, is a natural event? If you have any old oaks around you, have a look. Nevertheless, since the mid-1980s oak trees have been dying in their prime in many sites in southern England. Oaks, which normally live to be 300 to 400 years, are dying as young as 40, writes Lynn Hunt. In Sherwood Forest, trees have lost on average, more than half of their crown density. And a survey across Europe has shown that the common or pedunculate oak, Quercus robur, i.e., the great spreading oak of oaks, is doing far worse than others. You may remember that we (i.e., the powers that be) chose the sessile oak, Quercus petraea as our national tree. Why? Don't know.
Back to the pedunculate oaks: The article states that more than three-quarters of them have lost at least 25 per cent of their leaves. Mind you, it's not the first time that oaks have suffered. The article tells us that in the early 1920s, common oaks died in alarming numbers in Britain. Honey fungus and oak mildew were the causes. It may be that climate change is the cause. In southern Europe the cork oak and the holm or evergreen oak have been having a bad time for a decade. In Germany, two excessively cold winters in the 1980s were blamed for die-back. Air pollution maybe, too. Oliver Rackham, a well-known Cambridge botanist says that oaks have recovered from die-back episodes in the past: "The evidence indicates that it is part of the normal behaviour of the tree." Another botanist, Tony Whitbread, warns, however, "No one is sure whether there's a problem until it's too late."
A tree with die-back, we learn has a black tarry substance weeping from the trunk. Well, we'll hear if there is a problem in this country. Meanwhile, keep on planting your acorns.