Is there anything more beautiful or more life affirming than a flowering oak tree?

Bursting into flower and leaf after six months or so of dormancy.

There are both male and female flowers on oak trees.

The yellowish-green male flowers hang down in long, drooping catkins, which release pollen on the wind to fertilise the female flowers on other trees.

The female flowers are small and red and are located at the tips of new shoots on short stalks called peduncles (below). When pollinated by the wind, they develop into acorns. 

Oak trees are the bastions of the countryside and support hundreds of different insect species.

The male catkins release their pollen in the spring, and the fertilised female flowers gradually mature into acorns by autumn. These then feed squirrels, mice, jays, woodpeckers, deer, pigs, and badgers throughout the winter.

But right now, we can just enjoy the magical appearance of the new, fresh, completely undamaged leaves and flowers that come without fail each year.