Cork Oak Trees Andalucia
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Cork Oak tree painting acrylic on canvas 1 metre x 1 metre Location 3 k below Casares on the south side of the road a steep slope populated by younger trees runs down into a dell. At the bottom of which is an ancient banking and ditch. This oak has seeded and lived its life here and is now the oldest tree. Bathed in dappled sunshine and sheltered from both the Atlantic and Sahara winds which create the extremes of Andalusian weather the old tree grows like a young lad. This painting is just 2 hours old very much a work in progress and still much to be done
middle aged Cork Oak tree near Casares nestling against a banking
its trunk and branches twists and bulges.
large mature C0rk Oak Tree
against a bank dominating the woodland
Three twisted Cork Oak trees on a steep bank. One trunk in particular
maybe freshly cut was a bright orange colour.
Mature tree at dusk Casares deep purple red bare trunk.
The stripped bark leaves a deep red to purple trunk which makes for striking images when you walk through the vast woodlands. And the Oak trees themselves make for interesting study ancient gnarled trunks and branches and triple trunks of mature trees and straight young saplings their image has been with us for millennium making them a venerable topic for the artist to study.
Info attached from http://www.andalucia.com/.
The cork oak, quercus suber - quercus the Latin for oak, suber the Latin for cork - is a native of both northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Its age is unknown, but the quercus suber or its ancestors have been around for at least 147 million years, when an evolutionary Selection Event - probably a drastic change in climate - caused the decline of single-seed gymnosperm trees and the appearance of angiosperm - multi-seeded - plants and trees. More suited to propagation and seed distribution, the angiosperms, among them the earliest quercus species, spread around the Mediterranean, forming part of the maquis, or scrub, that would cover the Mediterranean basin for millions of years. Early man would have used quercus suber, among others of the quercus family (and there are dozens of varieties) for fire wood, implements, weapons and, when the hunter-gatherers began to settle in or around the thirteen century BCE, for building.
Archaeologists have found evidence of tribes actively working with quercus suber in northern Africa before 6,000 BCE. Similar evidence has been found in AndalucÃa and other parts of southern Spain dating back 4,000 years BCE or more. It would take thousands of years more before the special sealant qualities of cork would be used to seal containers of liquid. This property is due solely to the presence of one particular substance, suberin, like suber taken from the Latin for cork. Suberin is a fatty substance found in the cells of cork which, in the denser forms of cork stops the passage of air, or liquid, through the cork.
Cork was probably first used as a sealant on containers by the Greeks and Phoenicians, to seal wines and other liquids in amphorae, the fat-bellied, wide-mouthed pottery containers that are probably distant ancestors of the Spanish tinaja. It would take the invention of the glass bottle, a fairly recent innovation in historical terms, for cork to finally meet glass. Apocryphal legend claims that a French monk, the aptly-named Fr. Perignon, discovered the sealant qualities of cork on a slender glass bottle neck, some time in the seventeenth century. As news of its efficacy spread, so a new industry appeared. Previously, cork had been one of a number of wild tree and bush growths which farmers used for implements, firewood and construction. They had also actively begun to manage it, often using fire, to clear land for crops and livestock, and to put a distance between the maquis where wild animals lived and the human settlements appearing throughout the regions where quercus suber flourished.e men join the gangs who roam the oak forests - Andalucia's Bosque del Alcornocales in the Parque Natural de Alcornocales is Spain's biggest single plantation - and each has a specific role in the (usually five-man) gang, from chief cutter to lowly carrier. The cutters' experience tells them how far to cut up the tree to avoid harming it. They travel around the forest in a nine-year cycle, allowing the trees they cut time to regenerate the cork (which is, in fact, a type of parasite on the bark of the tree beneath). Their burros, mules, roam free in the forest for the rest of the year, never straying too far from a free meal, but for the two month harvest they trek back and forth between harvest site and cork factory. So expert is their knowledge of the routes that, once loaded, a tap on the back will send them off unaccompanied to the factory. The town of Cortes de la Frontera actually holds burro-loading contests at its annual summer feria, with a prize for the most ingenious loading of a burro.
What we see lying curled on the ground is still many stages away from fitting into the neck of a bottle. At the factory the cork is boiled in a vast, deep (maybe 15 feet) pool of water, which renders it malleable for flattening and then processing by machine.
The cork then goes through several levels of compression, depending on its destination. It emerges as very thin sheets of varying sizes, perhaps thinner than a child's little finger. It is then checked for quality - the oak trade has five levels, from excellent to poor - and the oak is assigned to a particular use; insulation, say.
Most interestingly, however, is how it does reach the bottles we uncork. Bottle corks are stamped out by machines, at different widths for wine, champagne and cognac (Spanish cork is treasured by the French brandy producers). When they pile up in the dumpers beneath the pressing machines, they look like big wooden pennies.he cork oak, quercus suber - quercus the Latin for oak, suber the Latin for cork - is a native of both northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Its age is unknown, but the quercus suber or its ancestors have been around for at least 147 million years, when an evolutionary Selection Event - probably a drastic change in climate - caused the decline of single-seed gymnosperm trees and the appearance of angiosperm - multi-seeded - plants and trees. More suited to propagation and seed distribution, the angiosperms, among them the earliest quercus species, spread around the Mediterranean, forming part of the maquis, or scrub, that would cover the Mediterranean basin for millions of years. Early man would have used quercus suber, among others of the quercus family (and there are dozens of varieties) for fire wood, implements, weapons and, when the hunter-gatherers began to settle in or around the thirteen century BCE, for building. Info from Andalucia.com
The stripped bark leaves a deep red to purple trunk which makes for striking images when you walk through the vast woodlands. And the Oak trees themselves make for interesting study ancient gnarled trunks and branches and triple trunks of mature trees and straight young saplings their image has been with us for millennium making them a venerable topic for the artist to study.
Info attached from http://www.andalucia.com/.
The cork oak, quercus suber - quercus the Latin for oak, suber the Latin for cork - is a native of both northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Its age is unknown, but the quercus suber or its ancestors have been around for at least 147 million years, when an evolutionary Selection Event - probably a drastic change in climate - caused the decline of single-seed gymnosperm trees and the appearance of angiosperm - multi-seeded - plants and trees. More suited to propagation and seed distribution, the angiosperms, among them the earliest quercus species, spread around the Mediterranean, forming part of the maquis, or scrub, that would cover the Mediterranean basin for millions of years. Early man would have used quercus suber, among others of the quercus family (and there are dozens of varieties) for fire wood, implements, weapons and, when the hunter-gatherers began to settle in or around the thirteen century BCE, for building.
Archaeologists have found evidence of tribes actively working with quercus suber in northern Africa before 6,000 BCE. Similar evidence has been found in AndalucÃa and other parts of southern Spain dating back 4,000 years BCE or more. It would take thousands of years more before the special sealant qualities of cork would be used to seal containers of liquid. This property is due solely to the presence of one particular substance, suberin, like suber taken from the Latin for cork. Suberin is a fatty substance found in the cells of cork which, in the denser forms of cork stops the passage of air, or liquid, through the cork.
Cork was probably first used as a sealant on containers by the Greeks and Phoenicians, to seal wines and other liquids in amphorae, the fat-bellied, wide-mouthed pottery containers that are probably distant ancestors of the Spanish tinaja. It would take the invention of the glass bottle, a fairly recent innovation in historical terms, for cork to finally meet glass. Apocryphal legend claims that a French monk, the aptly-named Fr. Perignon, discovered the sealant qualities of cork on a slender glass bottle neck, some time in the seventeenth century. As news of its efficacy spread, so a new industry appeared. Previously, cork had been one of a number of wild tree and bush growths which farmers used for implements, firewood and construction. They had also actively begun to manage it, often using fire, to clear land for crops and livestock, and to put a distance between the maquis where wild animals lived and the human settlements appearing throughout the regions where quercus suber flourished.e men join the gangs who roam the oak forests - Andalucia's Bosque del Alcornocales in the Parque Natural de Alcornocales is Spain's biggest single plantation - and each has a specific role in the (usually five-man) gang, from chief cutter to lowly carrier. The cutters' experience tells them how far to cut up the tree to avoid harming it. They travel around the forest in a nine-year cycle, allowing the trees they cut time to regenerate the cork (which is, in fact, a type of parasite on the bark of the tree beneath). Their burros, mules, roam free in the forest for the rest of the year, never straying too far from a free meal, but for the two month harvest they trek back and forth between harvest site and cork factory. So expert is their knowledge of the routes that, once loaded, a tap on the back will send them off unaccompanied to the factory. The town of Cortes de la Frontera actually holds burro-loading contests at its annual summer feria, with a prize for the most ingenious loading of a burro.
What we see lying curled on the ground is still many stages away from fitting into the neck of a bottle. At the factory the cork is boiled in a vast, deep (maybe 15 feet) pool of water, which renders it malleable for flattening and then processing by machine.
The cork then goes through several levels of compression, depending on its destination. It emerges as very thin sheets of varying sizes, perhaps thinner than a child's little finger. It is then checked for quality - the oak trade has five levels, from excellent to poor - and the oak is assigned to a particular use; insulation, say.
Most interestingly, however, is how it does reach the bottles we uncork. Bottle corks are stamped out by machines, at different widths for wine, champagne and cognac (Spanish cork is treasured by the French brandy producers). When they pile up in the dumpers beneath the pressing machines, they look like big wooden pennies.he cork oak, quercus suber - quercus the Latin for oak, suber the Latin for cork - is a native of both northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Its age is unknown, but the quercus suber or its ancestors have been around for at least 147 million years, when an evolutionary Selection Event - probably a drastic change in climate - caused the decline of single-seed gymnosperm trees and the appearance of angiosperm - multi-seeded - plants and trees. More suited to propagation and seed distribution, the angiosperms, among them the earliest quercus species, spread around the Mediterranean, forming part of the maquis, or scrub, that would cover the Mediterranean basin for millions of years. Early man would have used quercus suber, among others of the quercus family (and there are dozens of varieties) for fire wood, implements, weapons and, when the hunter-gatherers began to settle in or around the thirteen century BCE, for building. Info from Andalucia.com
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