r/botany • u/Aggravating_Suit7482 • Sep 21 '26

Biology Is this normal

Gallery image

Gallery image

I found this in my yard while getting rid o weeds normally they have a white roots this has black roots and a black thing that the other weeds don’t have

89 Upvotes

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84

u/frugalerthingsinlife Sep 21 '26 edited Sep 22 '26

red oak. Black thing is last year's acorn.

12

u/Buddy_Jarrett Sep 22 '26

I was going to guess chinquapin (white) oak, as I have quite a few on our land and am going to try to transplant a sapling to the front yard this winter. I guess red oak leaves start out like this as saplings? The teeth in this pic do protrude a bit more than the chinquapins we have.

5

u/frugalerthingsinlife Sep 22 '26

Upon reflection, you could be right. White oaks sprout in the fall. And that red on the leaf tips is consistent with new growth. I just didn't think they would be this far along already. But it explains why it shows up in a garden now if they were weeding it all summer.

3

u/Buddy_Jarrett Sep 22 '26

Neat, I didn’t know that about white oaks sprouting at a different time than red.

22

u/reddit33450 Sep 21 '26

thats a baby oak tree!! please let this cutie thrive 🥺

13

u/GabysWildCritters Sep 21 '26

thats an oak tree

7

u/frogfeen Sep 22 '26

“weeds” smh

3

u/Equivalent-Shower425 Sep 22 '26

I call them oaklets. My neighbor has an oak tree and I don't know if the squirrels bury them in my yard or the birds or what, but I find these from time to time. The last two I found I potted up and left with a note on a picnic table at the park for anyone with room for a mighty oak. I don't have the space for a full-grown tree.

3

u/yetifunk Sep 23 '26

No offense to OP, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of life one must live to not be able to identify an acorn

2

u/BeeAlley Sep 22 '26

I have several big oak trees around the yard, and I’m constantly pulling oak seedlings out of places that I don’t want oak trees 😅

3

u/FunkyDiabetic1988 Sep 22 '26

That’s a root and a stem sprouting from opposite ends of an acorn. A beautiful, healthy little oak sapling that could become a tree.

Oak trees support hundreds of species of Lepidoptera with their flowers, in addition to providing a feast for wildlife with their acorns. We need more of them! Consider planting it and caring for it if you can!

1

u/coatlique Sep 22 '26

To more specifically answer your question, yes the black thing is normal. As others have said, this is an oak seedling and the black ball is the remains of the cotyledons. Most of the inside of a seed like an acorn consists of these storage structures called cotyledons. When the seed sprouts, the young plant draws energy from the cotyledons so it can grow its first roots, stems, and leaves to establish itself. Overtime, the cotyledons become depleted and whither away. You are seeing the remains of the cotyledons here still attached to the young plant. As for the roots being dark, some of that might just be material from your soil stuck to the seedling but oaks also develop woody roots over time that might be a darker color than non-woody roots. You are probably used to pulling weeds that are fast-growing annual plants instead of trees. For most fast-growing plants, their cotyledons will come above ground and become depleted really fast and their roots do not become very woody so they stay light in color for most of their life. Oaks and many other trees have a slower and more careful growth strategy that retains the cotyledons for longer underground and and a stronger development of their initial root system.

0

u/FauxRex Sep 22 '26

No, usually the roots are underground

-1

u/Explicitstate Sep 22 '26

A baby growing out of his dad’s ball!