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Oak Origins: From Acorns to Species and the Tree of Life
From ancient acorns to future forests, 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 Andrew L. Hipp as our guide, Oak Origins takes us through a sweeping evolutionary history, stretching back to a population of trees that lived more than 50 million years ago. We travel to the ancient tropical Earth to see the ancestors of the oaks evolving side by side with the dinosaurs. We journey from the oaks’ childhood in the once-warm forests of the Arctic to the montane cloud forests of Mexico and the broad-leaved evergreen forests of Southeast Asia. We dive into current research on oak genomes to see how scientists study genes’ movement between species and how oaks evolve over generations—spanning 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.
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 Andrew L. Hipp as our guide, Oak Origins takes us through a sweeping evolutionary history, stretching back to a population of trees that lived more than 50 million years ago. We travel to the ancient tropical Earth to see the ancestors of the oaks evolving side by side with the dinosaurs. We journey from the oaks’ childhood in the once-warm forests of the Arctic to the montane cloud forests of Mexico and the broad-leaved evergreen forests of Southeast Asia. We dive into current research on oak genomes to see how scientists study genes’ movement between species and how oaks evolve over generations—spanning 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.
- GenresScienceNatureNonfiction
288 pages, Hardcover
Published December 12, 2024
12 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 23, 2025
this book is primarily about the trees relationships with other trees. I am not a tree however so I struggled to derive meaning from it.
incredibly well researched
incredibly well researched
August 20, 2025
A masterful botanic detective story, carefully plotted and very well-written. Likely will appeal most to botanically literate, scientifically-minded readers; general readers may be a bit lost and/or bored.
For three days in August 1969, twelve musicians, an engineer and a music producer joined jazz trumpeter Mies Davis at a recording studio. There was very little music written ahead of time, Instead, Davis proffered ideas, and the rest of the group riffed and improvised while audio tape recorded for three hours each day. By all accounts the initial results were mediocre.
Then, over the next few months, Davis and his producer worked through the hours of tape, distilling, editing and running sections through synthesizers. The collection of moments captured in the studio only became the final music, “Pharoah’s Dance,” the opening piece on Miles’s Bitches Brew album, after it was remixed from 18 different splices.
In much the same way, genetic recombination is the original “Pharoah’s Dance,” producing unique combinations of alleles that are only fully realized when they are expressed in individual organisms variously adapted to their environments. And oaks are experts at genetic recombination. Author Andrew Hipp’s masterful analogy comparing the assembly of a jazz classic to oak reproduction is only one of the inspired flourishes in Oak Origins. The book is as carefully crafted as a mystery novel and, for ecologists, taxonomists and botanists, the outcome is just as satisfying.
Hipp sets off on his exploration of the genus Quercus from a rather unexpected perspective: flowers and acorns. The approach is perhaps unexpected, but Hipp is an expert storyteller. He knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going. In Hipp’s hands, the development of the story of the tree of life embodied by the oaks seems so logical and natural that the reader may be left wondering how else it could have been told. Hipp completes the introduction to oak flowers and acorns with a strikingly original and imaginative five-page description of population biology and speciation—an accessible magical mystery tour of pollination, variability, migration, isolation and speciation.
Currently, experts recognize about 425 species of oaks worldwide. Oaks collectively comprise a greater volume of woody biomass than that of any other tree genus on Earth. Furthermore, there are more species of oaks than there are of any other tree genus. Nevertheless, oaks have a reputation for promiscuity and are the poster child for difficulty in defining species. Hybridization is rampant. Hipp estimates that 80% of the individual oak trees in a forest that contains of a mixture of oak species are pure representatives of a given species, and the remaining 20% of the individual trees are hybrids. With such easy gene flow, maintaining species identity might seem problematic, but Hipp details how the genus maintains the integrity of species while benefiting from gene exchange.
Building on the information about flowers, acorns, population ecology and hybridization, Hipp steps back to examine the origin of the genus at the end of the Paleocene Epoch, about 56 million years ago, as it developed as a clade of the order Fagales that today includes seven families. He also includes a fascinating examination of the history of the shifting human classification schemes of the oaks and their brethren from 1892 onward. Beginning in 1993, with the advent of genetic sequencing, experts have developed an increasingly refined understanding of oak phylogenetics and are now confident that the true structure of relatedness among the members of the Fagales is known with a high degree of certainty.
Once differentiated into a genus, oaks spread widely, most successfully throughout the northern temperate latitudes, and radiated into the diverse array of species present today. Hipp’s speculation about migration and speciation informs a worldwide travelogue spanning the entire Cenozoic Era through the Pleistocene. As oaks moved around the globe, they were incorporated into plant communities, often including more than one oak species, and usually became the dominant individuals in those communities.
Hipp concludes with a short consideration of the future of oaks as the planet warms. Given the genus’ diversity and adaptability, he is upbeat about oaks’ ability to persist. He also briefly reviews oaks’ importance, especially for insects. More than 1,000 insect species are known to feed on oaks; the actual number is almost certainly much higher. Among native plants in ecosystems, no other genus supports more species of leaf-eating caterpillars, the main food source for many breeding birds. Oaks are a pillar of biodiversity wherever they occur.
More than likely, to keep the narrative flowing smoothly with minimal distractions and interruptions, occasional notes are relegated to a separate section at the end of the book and keyed to the main text by references to page numbers. Readers interested in more detailed information need to consult these notes proactively. Voluminous references to the scientific literature are included only in the notes, not in the main text. The book also includes a comprehensive index, and a few graphs and maps.
Béatrice Chassé, former president of the International Oak Society and editor of International Oaks, introduces the book in a short foreword. The text features numerous grayscale illustrations by Rachel D. Davis. These illustrations appear to have been executed originally in watercolor or ink wash from photographs, herbarium collections, and a few live specimens. While the illustrations serve to break up the text and to highlight the diversity of leaf and acorn forms, occasionally the images do not clearly illustrate their subjects because of the nature of the medium in which they were rendered. Images of fossilized pollen grains appear as little more than amorphous tricornered gray blobs or lumpy potatoes. An oak gall wasp larva is nearly indistinguishable from its enclosing gall.
At times, Hipp’s writing is dense, but he is a skilled enough author that he does not lose his audience. Nevertheless, the book likely will appeal most to botanists and well-educated ecological professionals. Though the text should be accessible enough to engage a biologically literate reader, the intricacies of the origin and evolution of a single genus of plants are likely to interest a specialized and limited audience—even if the remarkable subjects are familiar to most outdoor recreationists and naturalists.
For three days in August 1969, twelve musicians, an engineer and a music producer joined jazz trumpeter Mies Davis at a recording studio. There was very little music written ahead of time, Instead, Davis proffered ideas, and the rest of the group riffed and improvised while audio tape recorded for three hours each day. By all accounts the initial results were mediocre.
Then, over the next few months, Davis and his producer worked through the hours of tape, distilling, editing and running sections through synthesizers. The collection of moments captured in the studio only became the final music, “Pharoah’s Dance,” the opening piece on Miles’s Bitches Brew album, after it was remixed from 18 different splices.
In much the same way, genetic recombination is the original “Pharoah’s Dance,” producing unique combinations of alleles that are only fully realized when they are expressed in individual organisms variously adapted to their environments. And oaks are experts at genetic recombination. Author Andrew Hipp’s masterful analogy comparing the assembly of a jazz classic to oak reproduction is only one of the inspired flourishes in Oak Origins. The book is as carefully crafted as a mystery novel and, for ecologists, taxonomists and botanists, the outcome is just as satisfying.
Hipp sets off on his exploration of the genus Quercus from a rather unexpected perspective: flowers and acorns. The approach is perhaps unexpected, but Hipp is an expert storyteller. He knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going. In Hipp’s hands, the development of the story of the tree of life embodied by the oaks seems so logical and natural that the reader may be left wondering how else it could have been told. Hipp completes the introduction to oak flowers and acorns with a strikingly original and imaginative five-page description of population biology and speciation—an accessible magical mystery tour of pollination, variability, migration, isolation and speciation.
Currently, experts recognize about 425 species of oaks worldwide. Oaks collectively comprise a greater volume of woody biomass than that of any other tree genus on Earth. Furthermore, there are more species of oaks than there are of any other tree genus. Nevertheless, oaks have a reputation for promiscuity and are the poster child for difficulty in defining species. Hybridization is rampant. Hipp estimates that 80% of the individual oak trees in a forest that contains of a mixture of oak species are pure representatives of a given species, and the remaining 20% of the individual trees are hybrids. With such easy gene flow, maintaining species identity might seem problematic, but Hipp details how the genus maintains the integrity of species while benefiting from gene exchange.
Building on the information about flowers, acorns, population ecology and hybridization, Hipp steps back to examine the origin of the genus at the end of the Paleocene Epoch, about 56 million years ago, as it developed as a clade of the order Fagales that today includes seven families. He also includes a fascinating examination of the history of the shifting human classification schemes of the oaks and their brethren from 1892 onward. Beginning in 1993, with the advent of genetic sequencing, experts have developed an increasingly refined understanding of oak phylogenetics and are now confident that the true structure of relatedness among the members of the Fagales is known with a high degree of certainty.
Once differentiated into a genus, oaks spread widely, most successfully throughout the northern temperate latitudes, and radiated into the diverse array of species present today. Hipp’s speculation about migration and speciation informs a worldwide travelogue spanning the entire Cenozoic Era through the Pleistocene. As oaks moved around the globe, they were incorporated into plant communities, often including more than one oak species, and usually became the dominant individuals in those communities.
Hipp concludes with a short consideration of the future of oaks as the planet warms. Given the genus’ diversity and adaptability, he is upbeat about oaks’ ability to persist. He also briefly reviews oaks’ importance, especially for insects. More than 1,000 insect species are known to feed on oaks; the actual number is almost certainly much higher. Among native plants in ecosystems, no other genus supports more species of leaf-eating caterpillars, the main food source for many breeding birds. Oaks are a pillar of biodiversity wherever they occur.
More than likely, to keep the narrative flowing smoothly with minimal distractions and interruptions, occasional notes are relegated to a separate section at the end of the book and keyed to the main text by references to page numbers. Readers interested in more detailed information need to consult these notes proactively. Voluminous references to the scientific literature are included only in the notes, not in the main text. The book also includes a comprehensive index, and a few graphs and maps.
Béatrice Chassé, former president of the International Oak Society and editor of International Oaks, introduces the book in a short foreword. The text features numerous grayscale illustrations by Rachel D. Davis. These illustrations appear to have been executed originally in watercolor or ink wash from photographs, herbarium collections, and a few live specimens. While the illustrations serve to break up the text and to highlight the diversity of leaf and acorn forms, occasionally the images do not clearly illustrate their subjects because of the nature of the medium in which they were rendered. Images of fossilized pollen grains appear as little more than amorphous tricornered gray blobs or lumpy potatoes. An oak gall wasp larva is nearly indistinguishable from its enclosing gall.
At times, Hipp’s writing is dense, but he is a skilled enough author that he does not lose his audience. Nevertheless, the book likely will appeal most to botanists and well-educated ecological professionals. Though the text should be accessible enough to engage a biologically literate reader, the intricacies of the origin and evolution of a single genus of plants are likely to interest a specialized and limited audience—even if the remarkable subjects are familiar to most outdoor recreationists and naturalists.
March 26, 2025
Haven’t read it yet, but already know it’s good.
June 12, 2025
I loved this book, even when it went slightly over my head, it gave me deep appreciation for the profound weirdness and splendor of our quercus friends
June 29, 2025
This book was an amazing look at oak evolution and evolution of all organisms. I loved learning about how oaks hybridize and how that compares to humans. I loved learning about how protein synthesis is similar to Jazz. I loved learning about communities and how they interact. This book is a must read for people interested in biology. I look forward to reading his children’s books next.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews