Autumn Acorn
Planets, the moon, astrology, and the wonder of nuts.
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ILLUSTRATION: JEAN GARDNER
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Seasons of the Earth and Sky
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Two billion squirrels can't be wrong.
By Fred Schaff
We all know that acorns fall and accumulate on the ground
in autumn, of course. And we all have been reminded at some
time or other that mighty oaks from little acorns grow. But
how often do we really look at this fruit in all its
variety of size, shape, and styling?
Each acorn has its cup, but that cup may be very shallow or
may almost completely enclose the nut. The cup may be
rough, prickly, or have smooth scales. The nut itself may
be roundish, tapered, or even cylindrical. The surface of
the acorn nut sometimes has a rather rough finish but may
also have a seemingly waxed or varnished look and feel.
Then there is the color of acorns. The variety is not as
great as that of autumn leaves, but you'll be surprised if
you start picking them up and looking. You'll see mixtures
of green, yellow, and every kind of brown from tan to
mahogany. The hues are muted compared to some autumn
leaves, but perhaps that is a pleasant contrast—and
it seems appropriate for so humble a thing.
Acorns come only from oaks. There are two major classes of
oak, the white oak group (with rounded leaf lobes) and
black oak groups (with pointy leaf lobes), and their acorns
are remarkably different in their life-stories as well as
in some other ways.
Perfect acorns of the white oak itself are hard to find
because they grow and fall in just a few months, and then
quickly decay or are seized as food by a wide variety of
animals and birds. They're also hard to find because the
white oak doesn't mature enough to bear acorns for about 50
years! In contrast, acorns of the black oak family take two
years to ripen, so some are always on the tree. In fact,
there may be two generations of them, distinguishable by
size, on a tree at once. Furthermore, once these acorns do
fall to the ground, they prove quite resistant to
disintegration and are not a favored food of wildlife
because they are bitter. The acorns of the chestnut oak, a
member of the white oak family, are said to be the sweetest
(in northern forests at least) for human beings to roast
and eat.
Can acorns or their gatherers be weather prognosticators?
Some people say that if squirrels are collecting unusually
great numbers of acorns in autumn, a hard winter is sure to
follow. That either trees or squirrels or both could be
affected by a prolonged spell of cool weather in summer or
autumn seems reasonable enough. But temperatures rarely
remain significantly below-average (or above-average) for
several seasons in a row—a very cold autumn is not
frequently followed by a very cold winter. Only factors
like certain ocean current temperature changes in parts of
the mighty Pacific seem to be reliable predictors of what
some regions' general weather will be like months in the
future.
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