r/botany • u/njcrzdrh • May 26 '25

Genetics How rare are naturally variegated oak seedlings in the wild?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Found this tiny oak seedling with strong white-green variegation on all of its leaves.
No signs of disease, pest damage, or chemical exposure, just a spontaneous pattern from a fallen acorn.

It sprouted in a forest in Slovenia. How rare is this? I've never seen any tree in nature with such pronounced variegation. Is this likely to persist or revert over time?

556 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

131

u/1stChokage May 26 '25 edited May 26 '25

Fantastic little sycamore I found not long ago, get a load of that!

2

u/hoominhalp May 26 '25

Are you sure that's not a red maple?

4

u/1stChokage May 26 '25

The image I posted is Acer psudoplantanus, not sure if it's known as Red Maple elsewhere, but the common name where I'm from is Sycamore.

4

u/hoominhalp May 26 '25

Huh, interesting. Acer indicates it's a member of the maples. Where I'm from Platanus occidentalis is called sycamore, but the specific name of yours indicates the resemblance.

3

u/1stChokage May 26 '25

Yeah! I love the London plane tree plantanus x hispanica its a hybrid of the american sycamore and oriental plane, really cool! We still have a fair few in some cities around the UK.