Oak. Perunov Tree. Care, Cultivation, Reproduction. Tsar Oak. Relic Trees. A Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Compared to the giant oak growing in the village of Verkhnyaya Khortytsya, near Zaporozhye, ordinary trees look like dwarfs. It seems to be very crowded with fifteen of its trunks (each of them is a large tree), arranged in a circle on a thick, squat trunk. Like the handle of a huge umbrella, it supports a dense, stately crown with these tree trunks.

How many historical events have died down, how many human generations have changed in the century of this rare long-liver. Fierce Tatar-Mongol hordes swept over Russia and after many years subsided into the deserts of the East, the Cossack glory of the Zaporozhye Sich died down, the fires of the Dnieper socialist construction projects were lit - and it is still growing, it will not be saturated with life. This oak is over 800 years old.

© Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

Science claims that in ancient times the Dnieper region was completely covered with centuries-old oak forests. But the Khortytsya veteran, who has withstood the many years of fierce struggle with the elements, still stands among the steppe expanses of Ukraine.

With the excitement that majestic monuments always cause, we read on the memorial plaque by the tree: “Zaporozhye oak is a natural monument of the 13th century. The height of the tree is 36 meters. The crown diameter is 43 meters. The circumference of the barrel is 632 centimeters."

Tradition says that this giant enjoyed special respect among the Zaporozhye Cossacks. More than one generation of them rested in the shade of its huge crown, hatching plans for their campaigns. Legend claims that it was here that Bogdan Khmelnytsky gathered an army to fight the Polish gentry, and here, going on a campaign, he took the oath of his "knights". Admonishing brave brothers, he urged them to be as unshakable in battle as this oak tree.

© Llez

The legend stubbornly holds in the surrounding villages that it was under this oak tree that the Zaporozhian Cossacks, announcing the whole district with heroic laughter, composed their famous letter to the Turkish Sultan.

Veterans similar to the Zaporozhye oak can be found in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, near Leningrad, in the Voronezh region and in other regions of our country.

The oldest tree in Europe is considered to be an almost 2,000-year-old old oak growing in Lithuania, in the town of Stelmuže. And in the town of Ladushkin, Kaliningrad region, there is still an 800-year-old Grunwald oak - a witness to the defeat of the Teutonic knights by Polish and Russian-Lithuanian troops (1410). Three 900-year-old giant oaks, called the trees of friendship, are widely known in Poland. They grow near Poznan, and each has its own name: Lyakh, Czech, Rus.

And here are the oaks, which were witnesses of historical events closer in time.

© Brass hat

During the Great Patriotic War, three hundred-year-old oak trees growing in the Kirovograd region, in the Khirovsky forestry, helped our partisans more than once. Here local underground fighters hid during the round-ups of the fascists, from here partisans were observing the enemy. Now these trees are called partisan oaks.

Not far from the miners' health resort of Svyatogorsk (Donetsk region), on the edge of the wide state protective forest belt Belgorod-Don, another giant rises alone, on which a memorial plaque and a portrait of a still young Soviet officer are fortified. On the board there is an inscription: "At this place in August 1943 artillery officer Vladimir Maksimovich Kamyshov died heroically." When crossing the Seversky Donets, Kamyshov, under the hurricane fire of the Nazis, set up an observation post in the crown of an oak tree dominating the area and from here adjusted the fire. An enemy shell mortally wounded the brave officer. The branches and trunk of the oak were badly damaged. He fought stubbornly against death, and only in the twentieth year his strength dried up. But even dry, the oak stands like a majestic monument on the hero's grave.

In recent years, a long-standing good tradition has regained our citizenship rights - to celebrate significant dates by planting trees. And oak, as the most respected forest dweller, is preferred. In the heart of Moscow - the Kremlin, a young oak-space grows, planted on April 14, 1961 in memory of the first steps of man in space. And in Leningrad, on the central alley of Lestekhnicheskaya Park

© Attaleiv

academies carefully grow as many as three "space" trees: two oak trees were planted in honor of the son and father of the Tsiolkovsky, and the third - the Gagarin oak. K. E. Tsiolkovsky and Yu. A. Gagarin, perhaps, did not happen to be here, but the young forester, who brilliantly graduated from the Forestry Institute (now the Leningrad Forestry Academy), E. I. Tsiolkovsky, the father of the great herald of the space age, participated in the creation this park alley.

“Among the elements that the ancestors worshiped for strength, goodness or beauty, there were also plant giants, similar to those oaks that recently stood on Khortitsa,” says Professor Vikhrov from the novel “Russian Forest” by Leonid in his fiery hymn speech to his green friend Leonov.

Few trees enjoy such love and respect among all peoples as the oak. The Slavs, ancient Greeks, Romans, at the dawn of their history, worshiped this tree, which often reached 1000-1500 years old, attributed miraculous properties to it, composed myths, legends, songs and epics about it. In Greece, the oak branch was the emblem of strength, power and nobility. Soldiers who performed outstanding deeds were awarded with oak wreaths.

Deifying the oak, the ancient Greeks dedicated it to Apollo, the god of light, the patron of the arts. The mighty age-old trees have often been declared saints. Sacrifices were performed under them, oracles spoke, the priests interpreted the sound of branches and the rustle of oak leaves in their own way, making prophecies to numerous pilgrims.

© Lestat

In ancient Rome, the oak was dedicated to the supreme god - Jupiter, and acorns were called divine fruits. The famous Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote that oaks, "untouched by centuries, of the same age as the universe, they amaze with their immortal fate, as the greatest wonder in the world."

The oak was also referred to as a holy tree by the Slavs. They dedicated him to the powerful god of thunder and lightning - Perun. In ancient chronicles, you can find references to the Perun tree. Under the canopy of oak trees, the Slavs made sacrifices to the gods, convened military councils, and made important government decisions.

It is not surprising that our ancestors revered this tree so much. After all, the history of the ancient Slavic tribes has always been closely connected with the forest. And where they lived, the forests were usually oak. Oak trees served as a source of power, protection from the raging elements and even as a kind of fortresses in wars with numerous enemies.

© Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

There is even a scientific hypothesis that people owe the appearance of bread in temperate latitudes to the oak. Scientists-archaeologists around the world suggest that the first bread plant could not be modern cereals - rye or wheat, but the same oak. A number of data indicate that people used bountiful harvests of acorns for making bread in very ancient times. During excavations of Trypillian settlements on the territory of the modern Kirovograd region, Soviet archaeologists found dried and pounded acorns, from which they baked bread here more than 5000 years ago.

Centuries, millennia pass, and people's interest in the forest giant does not diminish.

Foresters and botanists can tell a lot about this tree. However, by the word "oak" they mean a whole genus, uniting about 600 species. Such a large family also occupies the appropriate living space. She has mastered vast territories not only on the European-Asian continent, but also in North America and even in Africa.

© Maufi

The names of all types of oak are difficult to enumerate: swamp and black, red and mountain, stone and fluffy, cork and pedunculate, Georgian and Virginian … In our forests, experts count about 20 species of oak. A relatively large collection of them (about 25 species and forms) is collected at the Forest-Steppe Experimental Station (Lipetsk Region), in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, in the Sochi Arboretum.

The oaks that we meet in the forests of Central Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, in parks and on the outskirts of Moscow, Orel, Voronezh, Kiev and other cities, like the giant Zaporozhye oak, belong to the most valuable species in our country - the pedunculate oak. Its Latin name is Quercus robur, which literally means: a beautiful, strong tree.

This is about him, about the pedunculated oak, numerous studies of foresters, dendrologists, botanists have been published, it is most often drawn by artists and sung by poets.

© Andrzej Barabasz

The oak has won the love and gratitude of millions of people with its longevity and majestic beauty. Great is the benefit that this giant brings to humanity. For example, its bark is widely used in the leather industry. Oak leaves are good food for one of the natural silk suppliers, the oak silkworm. Acorns do not go to waste either: acorns are now used as a substitute for coffee, and they are fed to pigs.

But all these are just side benefits brought by the oak to people. Its main wealth is wood. It is hardly worth talking in detail about the high quality and exceptional value of oak wood, about how long and reliably various products necessary in everyday life serve people. Once again, its extraordinary resilience was confirmed by a recent find near the village of Shchuchye on the banks of the Don. An oak boat was found under a six-meter layer of river sediments, which had lain in the ground for about 4000 years. Made from a solid oak trunk at the end of the Stone Age or at the beginning of the Bronze Age, this very impressive boat (more than a meter wide and 8 meters long) has been perfectly preserved to this day. Even the holes for eight oarlocks are well preserved. The unique exhibit is the pride of the Historical Museum in Moscow.

© Crusier

The beauty of oak appreciated by our ancestors is being improved by people from generation to generation. Do not be surprised if you meet a giant with a columnar, like a slender cypress, crown or with a spherical and even weeping, like a willow. Other oak trees have purple, golden or silvery foliage. All these are forms selected over millennia by the painstaking work of many generations of unknown breeders.

Soviet scientists are also very interested in oak. Professor L. F. Pravdin devoted a lot of work to the development of the most valuable forms of cork oaks in the USSR. Many new forms of oak were created by Corresponding Member of the VI Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Professor S. S. Pyatnitsky. Now they grow both in Ukraine and in Moscow near the Forestry pavilion at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy and are distinguished by their rapid growth, resistance to adverse conditions, and originality of botanical features. The new forms of oak were named by S. S. Pyatnitsky oaks of Timiryazev, Michurin, Komarov, Vysotsky.

Each tree has its own characteristics. Foresters learned a long time ago that in the early years the oak grows very slowly, as if fearing something. At this time, it turns out, the oak prepares for centuries-old life, builds a reliable foundation, puts its powerful roots deep into the earth. Only from 8-10 years of age does the intensive formation of the aboveground part - the trunk and branches - begin in the oak. Since then, it has been growing annually in height up to half a meter, sometimes more, while the diameter of the oak trunk only thickens by a few millimeters. Unlike many other trees, oak can grow twice a year (start growing), forming the so-called Ivanov shoots. Under favorable conditions, oak has three increments.

© Jean-Pol GRANDMONT

Oak grows better with side shading and does not tolerate shading from above. But he is not afraid of either the severe frosts of the middle zone, or the prolonged droughts of the south.

Two human generations are not always enough to grow an oak. Only individual trees in the 25-30th year of life give the first few acorns. It takes many, many years to wait for bountiful, consistent harvests. Happiness does not always fall to the lot of those who planted acorns, to wait for the harvest of the trees that have grown from them. Such people work for the future.

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