The Oak Tree As Unsung Hero

"The oak's distinction is its insistence and its flexibility," he says. 'It specializes in not specializing.'

...No other tree, he says, played such an integral role in the creation and development of human civilization.We ate the acorns (and in some places still do). We used oak wood to build houses and furniture, as well as the boats that sailed from Europe to the New World. We extracted tannins from oak bark to tan leather, and we've turned to oak galls to make the ink in which the great works of European art and poetry, as well as the American Constitution, are written."

Thanks to Laura Kranz