I planted a bunch of acorns in pots and they are now about 8" tall. Is there a way to determine the sex of an oak tree at this early stage?
Female oak trees drop acorns, and I'd like to avoid this. Do male oaks have any annoying behaviors?
Thanks for your help.
Sex determination of oaks is pretty easy - they are monoecious, with both male and female flowers appearing on the same tree. If you have oaks, you will have acorns :-)
pam - gardengal
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Oooh, good word, monoecious.
Thanks, I wasn't aware that any plants were monoecious. I thought dual sexuality was reserved for amebas and snails.
What other plants are like this? Is there a way to easily distinguish monoecious plants for a plant moron like me?
Thanks.
Too many to list - the majority of plants have this attribute, while far fewer are (here's another one) dioecious - separate sexes on different plants. The only way to distinguish between the two is to look closely at the flowers to determine exactly what floral sex organs they contain. You can have male flowers, female flowers or, more often than not, 'perfect' flowers, which are comprised of both male and female sex organs. All members of the rose family, for example, have perfect flowers.
The study of botany appears to be significantly lacking from our primary education sysytem :-)
pam - gardengal
The one I have that I like best is Keifer pear!!
Tom J
Three important dioecious plants for home gardens are ash trees, asparagus, and gingko.
Female ash trees (especiall Fraxinus uhdei) drop large quantities of seed. From my one tree, I can sweep up several buckets full (5 gal) each year from just my patio. And I'm always pulling ash seedlings from my flower beds. If I knew 30 years ago (when I planted it) what I know now, I would have insisted on buying a certified male tree.
Female asparagus plants look pretty in the late summer and early fall, when they are covered with small red berries. Cut them back before the berries fall and start asparagus seedlings where you don't want them. Nurseries do sell packages of male-only plants. However, female asparagus plants produce spears that are more plump.
Female gingko trees have cone-like fruits that supposedly have a very foul odor when they fall and start to rot. Most commerically available gingkos are cutting grown males.
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Is it true that monoecious plants are not able to fertilize themselves, despite the fact that they have male and femal growth?
Some can, some can't.
Some plants have the different organs become ripe at different times of the day (avocado for one) or different times of the flower's blooming cycle to minimize self pollination. some are self sterile, some regularly pollinate themselves, no other flower involved.
It's a whole wide, weird world out there.
Not nearly as weird as when you talk about animals that can change their sex based on environmental conditions. : )
steve
In article , Bruce W.1 writes
Flowers can be
a) male b) female c) hermaphrodite
Hermaphrodite flowers have male parts (stamens) and female parts (pistils).
Plants can bear any combination of flower types.
I don't know the figures, but I suspect that more species are hermaphrodite than anything else.
Monoecious plants have both male and female flowers on a single plant. In the easy case the flowers are easily distinguished, by the male flowers lacking pistils and the female flowers lacking stamens. In other cases male and female flowers have different gross morphologies (IIRC, this is the case for willows). In other cases it's harder to tell, e.g. when the female flowers have sterile staminodes scarcely difference from the stamens of the male flowers.
Iowa City has female Ginko trees around the University campus. When the fruit drop, it smells like drunk students puked all over the street.
-Adam
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