Garden & avenue classics
English Oak
Quercus robur
The grand oaks of Toorak, Kew and Canterbury were planted when the estates were, many in the mid-1800s, and they've been quietly outgrowing everything around them since. An established English oak is usually the largest living thing on its block, and one of the most valuable trees a Melbourne garden can hold.
How to spot an english oak
Leaves
The classic oak leaf: deep rounded lobes on an almost stalkless leaf, with two small ear-like lobes right at the base.
Acorns
Carried on long stalks in ones and twos, green ripening to brown in autumn. The lawn beneath a mature oak tells you what it is every March.
Bark
Grey-brown with deep, regular vertical furrows that get more rugged with age.
Form
A vast rounded dome on a short, immensely thick trunk, with heavy horizontal limbs reaching wider than the tree is tall.
Season
Late to leaf out in spring, russet-brown in autumn, and bare through winter, when the muscular branch structure is on full display.
Where you'll see it around the south east
Estate-sized blocks in Toorak and Kew hold the biggest private specimens, and the old gardens of Canterbury, Camberwell and Malvern have their share. Public parks across the inner east feature oaks planted by 19th-century councils that are now among Melbourne's largest trees.
Worth knowing
English oaks can live for many centuries, and Melbourne's are barely middle-aged by the species' standards. Their size and age mean many are protected on council significant tree registers, and their acorn drops feed everything from cockatoos to possums through autumn.
Easily confused with
Pin oaks have sharply pointed lobes and vivid red autumn colour. Algerian oaks hold most of their leaves through winter. The rounded lobes, long-stalked acorns and short leaf stalk mark out the English oak.
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