Oak in the context of "Rab (island)"


Rab, a Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea, features a diverse landscape; while its northeastern side is characterized by barren karst terrain, the southwestern side notably preserves one of the last remaining oak forests in the Mediterranean region.

⭐ In the context of Rab island, oak trees are considered…

This trivia question was curated and created using the Wikipedia/wiki/Oak page under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (opens in new tab)


⭐ Core Definition: Oak

An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, with some 500 species, both deciduous and evergreen. Fossil oaks date back to the Middle Eocene. Molecular phylogeny shows that the genus is divided into Old World and New World clades, but many oak species hybridise freely, making the genus's history difficult to resolve.

Ecologically, oaks are keystone species in habitats from Mediterranean semi-desert to subtropical rainforest. They live in association with many kinds of fungi including truffles. Oaks support more than 950 species of caterpillar, many kinds of gall wasp which form distinctive galls (roundish woody lumps such as the oak apple), and a large number of pests and diseases. Oak leaves and acorns contain enough tannin to be toxic to cattle, but pigs are able to digest them safely. Oak timber is strong and hard, and has found many uses in construction and furniture-making. The bark was traditionally used for tanning leather. Wine barrels are made of oak; these are used for aging alcoholic beverages such as sherry and whisky, giving them a range of flavours, colours, and aromas. The spongy bark of the cork oak is used to make traditional wine bottle corks. Almost a third of oak species are threatened with extinction due to climate change, invasive pests, and habitat loss.

↓ Menu
HINT: The southwestern side of Rab island is specifically noted for being covered by one of the last oak forests of the Mediterranean, indicating their concentration in that region.

👉 Oak in the context of Rab (island)

Rab (Croatian: [ɾâːb]) is an island in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County in Croatia, located just off the northern Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea.

The island is 22 km (14 mi) long, has an area of 93.6 km (36 sq mi) and 7,161 inhabitants (2021). The main settlement on the island is the eponymous town of Rab, although the neighboring village of Palit has the biggest population. The highest peak is Kamenjak at 408 m. The northeastern side of the island is mostly barren, karst, while the southwestern side is covered by one of the last oak forests of the Mediterranean.

↓ Explore More Topics
In this Dossier