I love this time of year as the temperatures begin to dip and the leaves start to change. While I don’t exactly welcome the shorter daylight, I’m grateful that living in Hampton Roads lets us experience all four seasons.
Beyond the calendar, I’ve always measured the seasons by the change we witness and experience with our native Live Oak tree, Quercus virginiana, especially as the keystone species in our maritime forests. These trees hold special beauty and symbolism for me. Their changes during the seasons are subtle and you may miss them if you’re not careful.
In winter, their leaves stand vigilant against winter storms and the cold, often looking a very dark almost black green as they hunker down and use all the remaining energy to hang on.
In spring, new buds appear and the trees produce both male and female flowers. The male flowers are easier to identify, as they ornamentally hang down from the trees in a cluster known as a catkin. Female flowers can be found above the base of leaves and the ends of branches, typically reddish in color and sit upon small flower stalks known as peduncles. When pollen from another oak’s catkin reaches one of these female flowers, fertilization can occur and lead to the production of an acorn. Spring shows a new year of growth for these old giants has begun – and their younger relatives restlessly await their turn when they too will be joining them.
In summer, they provide abundant shade on days of high temperatures and high humidity, sucking up gallons upon gallons of water from thunderstorms and downpours.
As summer gives way to fall, these trees easily withstand hurricanes, tropical storms and northeasters as if to say to the weather “Is that all you can do?” as they barely sway in the winds. Acorns fall to signal a new generation is on its way, and squirrels busily plant these new babies often forgetting where they placed these food stores as a new crop of seedlings will emerge in the coming spring.
All along their yearly path they periodically will drop leaves and small branches, as if to say “we are constantly growing and changing – that’s why we are called live oaks.” And live they are as they live around us – many of the iconic oldsters having been here and large trees even before the arrival of colonists from England.
Just like these trees, our maritime forests and their upland forest cousins also quietly and vitally continue their mission and gift to us, supporting life all around us. Their fallen leaves feed the soil that filters rainwater before it reaches the river, reminding me that the health of our forests and the health of our waterways – and thus our human communities as well – are inseparable.
Caring for our live oaks is, in its own way, caring for ourselves and the generations who will follow us.
~ Clay Bernick
“Caring for our live oaks is, in its own way, caring for ourselves and the generations who will follow us.”
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