Hello! In this tutorial, we are going to meet some of the most common tree nuts you are likely to find on your countryside nature walk and learn how to identify them. Their names are:
Are you ready to meet them? Lets get started!
There are many sizes and shapes of tree seeds, but usually, we only notice the larger sized seeds. In addition to the trees mentioned here, there are also nine other seed-bearing trees you may spot on your nature walks: These are ash, field maple, hornbeam, linden, London plane, Norway maple, pine, sycamore and wych elm, which you can learn more about on my tree seeds tutorial.
Acorns come in all shapes and sizes, but usually have an oval shaped seed nestled in a textured cup.
Beech nuts are triangular and nestled inside a three-bladed husk, which is smooth inside and spiky outside.
Hazelnuts are round with a little crinkled gather at the top and sit inside a feathery, leafy husk.
Horse chestnuts are round, deep chestnut brown with a pale spot beneath and grow inside a tough, spiky, rounded shell.
Sweet chestnuts are a beautiful reddish brown, with pale tufts on top and often grow in pairs inside a spikey shell.
Walnuts are a light brown, crinkly nut, growing inside a tough, fibrous shell, inside a tough, apple-green outer husk.
Nuts and seeds are basically the babies or offspring of parent trees.
They are produced following pollination of the trees' flowers and contain all the genetic material of the tree and inside, they have a supply of food and nutrients ready to start their journey into new trees. In fact, even their shapes are specially designed to help give the seedlings a head start in life.
Because, in order to grow up strong and healthy, trees need space to grow and access to good sunlight. So, if they fell and sprouted right under their parent, they would be competing with them for space, sun and nutrients.
In order to solve this little problem, nuts have found different ways to help themselves disperse and travel away from their parent tree.
Yet others have little pockets or air to make them bouyant so they float. Or, they have wings to fly away.
But, you may be wondering, how can they grow if they are eaten? Well... think about how many acorns the squirrels bury... and in how many places. No matter how many they eat, there will always be some left over or forgotten about. These are the nuts which grow.
Well, there we go! In this tutorial, we have met six of our most common tree nuts and learn how to identify them. Can you remember their names? They are:
In addition to meeting these nuts, we also learned a little bit about what they are (shelter and protection for baby trees) and how even their shapes help out the little trees disperse and avoid being eaten or carried away too soon.
Right! Are you ready for your wild nuts nature study?
Your task, is to take a nature walk and look for nuts! I want you to:
