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From ancient acorns to the forests of the future, the story of how oaks evolved and the many ways they shape our world.
An oak begins its life with the precarious journey of a pollen grain, then an acorn, then a seedling. A mature tree may shed millions of acorns, but only a handful will grow. One oak may then live 100 years, 250 years, or even 13,000 years. But the long life of an individual is only a part of these trees' story.
With naturalist and leading researcher on the deep history of oaks Andrew L. Hipp as our guide, Oak Origins is a sweeping evolutionary history, stretching back to a population of trees that lived more than fifty million years ago. We travel to ancient tropical Earth to see the ancestors of the oaks evolving in the shadows of the dinosaurs. We journey from the once-warm Arctic forests of the oaks' childhood to the montane cloud forests of Mexico and the broadleaved evergreen forests of southeast Asia. We dive into current research on oak genomes to see how scientists study genes moving between species and how oaks evolve over generations – and tens of millions of years. Finally, we learn how oak evolutionary history shapes the forests we know today, and how it may even shape the forests of the future.
Oaks are familiar to almost everyone and beloved. They are embedded in our mythology. They have fed us, housed us, provided wood for our ships and wine barrels and homes and halls, planked our roads, and kept us warm. Every oak also has the potential to feed thousands of birds, squirrels, and mice, and host countless insects, mosses, fungi, and lichens. But as Oak Origins makes clear, the story of the oaks' evolution is not just the story of one important tree. It is the story of the Tree of Life, connecting all organisms that have ever lived on Earth, from oaks' last common ancestor to us.
Foreword: Figuring Things Out, by Beatrice Chasse
Introduction: What Is an Oak?
Chapter 1. Flowers and Acorns: Populations Arise and Migrate
Chapter 2. Variation: Populations Evolve
Chapter 3. Species and Their Hybrids
Chapter 4. Origins: Fagaceae
Chapter 5. Radiation: Quercus
Chapter 6. "Pharaoh's Dance": The Oak Genome
Chapter 7. Oak Communities
Epilogue: The Future of Oaks
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Oak Names
Notes
Literature Cited
Index
Andrew L. Hipp is the director of the herbarium and senior scientist in plant systematics at the Morton Arboretum as well as a lecturer at the University of Chicago. Hipp's creative work has appeared in Arnoldia, Scientific American, International Oaks: The Journal of the International Oak Society, Places Journal, and his natural history blog, A Botanist's Field Notes. He is the author of Field Guide to Wisconsin Sedges and sixteen children's books on a variety of natural history topics.
"In this brilliant exploration, oaks emerge as jazz musicians, continually improvising, collaborating, and finding new living music over millions of years. We think of oaks as hard and unyielding, but Hipp's compelling writing reveals them as supple and inventive, from genes, to physiology, to their ecologies."
– David George Haskell, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biology, Sewanee: The University of the South, and the author of Sounds Wild and Broken, The Songs of Trees, and The Forest Unseen
"Oaks are strong and sturdy, adaptable and beautiful, and the same can be said for Hipp's joyful book Oak Origins. Hipp, director of the herbarium at the Morton Arboretum near Chicago, is a world expert on tree genetics and evolution, and with his new book, proves that he has science writing chops as well. In his meditation on oaks, he uses these familiar trees to explore the wonders of plants, ecosystems, evolution, and Earth history. I grew up amongst the oaks in Illinois. A few huge ones towered over our backyard, but I didn't think much of them until one was felled by lightning, and all of a sudden, our home was less vibrant with birds and insects. After reading Hipp's book, I understand why: oaks are the nexus of a hidden world of diversity and beauty, which we must preserve as climates and environments change rapidly around us."
– Steve Brusatte, professor and palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh and New York Times-bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
"There is poetry, suspense, and humor in Andrew's science, and in his writing. You can enter his story in many different ways, but, once you are in it, you will be captivated."
– Béatrice Chassé, former president of the International Oak Society, from the foreword
