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Home>TRAILS>TREE TRAIL> Quick Notes about the Holm Oak

The Holm Oak

Quick Notes about the Holm Oak Take me here now

The Facts

Tree Type: A large evergreen tree with a particularly dark bark and dark green leaves. It likes a Mediterranean climate and is known for its very hard wood. It was introduced to the UK in the late 1500s and thrives in the south, but it can be killed by harsh winters.

Location: The holm oak is found across northern Spain and the coastal areas of southern France, Italy and the Balkans. It is good for coastal habitats because it is not damaged by salt spray.

Ecology: When it has space and light the holm oak can spread out to grow an enormous crown. The acorns are slightly more pointed than English oaks, and are an important source of food for wildlife. The young leaves are spiny to prevent animals from eating them, which is why this tree is also called the holly oak. As a broadleaf tree and an evergreen, the holm oak provides a good habitat for birds.

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The Legends

The Greeks considered the holm oak to be a symbol of fertility, and wore acorn-shaped charms. If a community wanted to honour someone, they presented a crown made of holm oak leaves.

The Romans also prized the holm oak for its very tough wood, which they used to make cart wheels and wooden tools.

The high quality Iberico ham produced in northern Spain has to be made from pigs fed on holm oak acorns.

Its dense wood burns slowly, making it a very good firewood if you are prepared to put in the effort of chopping it up.

Because it is quite tolerant of pollution and shade, landscape designers often plant holm oaks in cities.

Make sure your volume is on: "Well suited to growing in this country"

Show transcript

This is a holm oak - it's in the oak family, but it's not deciduous. It keeps its leaves during the winter. Very dark bark, small kind of plated fissures on the bark and, and small oval leaves.

It's native to the Mediterranean...North Spain. Obviously well suited to growing in this country...it thrives!

It grows very large in this country. They often used it in landscape planning because it's so dark, they used to use it as a background tree. So you'd have like a landscape of dark and then they'd plant lighter trees in front of it.

Very dense wood, not generally used as a timber tree, mostly as an ornamental parkland tree or urban tree.

We can see on this one, we have a fungal bracket on the back side, it looks like a ganoderma, so that will, you know, slowly kill it and, and they'll fall over. But they could easily live up to 200 years. Generally, you're looking at a hundred, hundred and fifty years old.

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