Abstract
IN peat-mosses, on open chalk downs, and in ploughed fields, often a mile or more from the nearest mature tree, one constantly finds acorn-husks and also seedling oaks, which last a few months or, perhaps, a couple of years, and then die, the conditions being unfavourable. It has always seemed to me, while studying the origin of the existing fauna and flora of Britain, that this dispersal of acorns ought to give an important clue to the means by which this country was again clothed when the climate became more genial after the Glacial Epoch. The oak has the largest seed of any British plant, and if it can be carried distances of a mile or more, it is evident that the whole of our present flora may have spread more rapidly than is usually imagined, and may have crossed straits and wide rivers.
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REID, C. The Dispersal of Acorns by Rooks. Nature 53, 6 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/053006a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053006a0
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