Oak

An oak is the most common tree in the game, found in a variety of biomes, available in several variants. It has the smallest initial space requirement for growth, and along with dark oak trees, it has a chance to drop an apple when a leaf block is destroyed. As with birches, an oak tree grown near flowers can generate with a bee nest attached.

Variants[]

Oaks come in several variants with different properties:

Small regular oaks are the most common. The leaves are arranged the same as the birch leaf arrangement and as some jungle trees, albeit rare.
Fancy oaks are less common and have a distinct look and different growth requirements. They often have branches, outgrowths of logs on the sides of the trunk, or even freestanding and surrounded by leaves. The sapling requires 4–14 blocks of open space directly above to grow (air or leaves only) but can otherwise be completely enclosed on all sides.
- A fancy oak form exists with a single leaf block layer above the minimal 4-block trunk, rarely allowing a tree to grow in a vertical space with a height of only 5, but otherwise, the maximum trunk height is 2 less than the vertical space, making the practical minimum height 6.
- An oak can be forced into a fancy configuration if a "brace" of non-solid blocks (e.g. glass or slabs) is placed around where the trunk would be, one block off the ground.
- A rare variant is colloquially known as a "balloon" oak. This is a fancy oak generated with the smallest size possible. It consists of a tall trunk and leaves that form a spherical shape, similar to a balloon. These oaks can grow around an obstructing block. They usually contain 4 blocks of logs, but some may contain more.
In swamp biomes, naturally occurring swamp oaks tend to grow in the water. Unlike trees in other biomes, which typically have a slightly conical or pointed canopy, all swamp oaks have round, flat-topped canopies. Also unlike oaks, these have a broad range of foliage. They tend to be covered in vines that trail down to the ground.

Plains Meeting Point 3 — Meeting point 3 in plains village.

An oak tree with a unique arrangement of leaves is generated at meeting point 3, in plains villages. This leaf arrangement is not found elsewhere naturally, and it cannot be grown from a sapling.
In some of the Trial Chamber entrance rooms, a small oak tree generates inside a 3 x 4 block copper ring, next to a water block.

Generation[]

The oak tree variants spawn naturally in the indicated biomes:

Biome	Oak	Fancy Oak	Swamp Oak
Bamboo Jungle
Dark Forest
Forest
Jungle
Sparse Jungle
Plains
River
Savanna
Swamp
Wooded Badlands
Windswept Forest
Meadow

Blocks and items[]

These items can be obtained from all variants of oak:

Apple (chance of dropping when breaking leaves)
Bee Nest (if spawned on an oak near flowers)
Mushrooms (if present on a fallen oak log)
Oak Leaves (harvested with shears)
Oak Log (harvested with any tool including hands)
Oak Planks (created from a log in the inventory crafting grid)
Oak Sapling (chance of dropping when breaking leaves)
Stripped Oak Log (created by using an axe on a log)
Vines (harvested with shears from a swamp oak, or from a dying tree‌^{[Bedrock Edition only]})
Stick (chance of dropping when breaking leaves)

Planting[]

Oak saplings can be planted and grown on all of these blocks:

An oak tree requires a 1×1 column of unobstructed space at least 4 blocks above its sapling to grow (5 blocks including the sapling itself). Oak trees can still grow when the base and trunk are enclosed on all sides. Their growth is not hindered by logs, leaves, dirt, or saplings.

An oak tree grown from a sapling within 2 blocks of a flower has a 5% chance of having a bee nest containing 2 bees.

Other variant oaks[]

Sometimes, trees can generate as one of the two following variants of the normal tree. Both of these generate naturally, and can be grown out of normal saplings.^[1]^[2]

Dying Trees — The different dying tree types.

Dying oak[]

A dying oak has the standard growth pattern of any other tree, however, all exposed logs in the main trunk are covered with vines. They can generate as regular or small oak trees.

Fallen oak log[]

These trees consist of a single upright log or stump. Logs lying on their side are often found 1–2 blocks from the stump. They occasionally have mushrooms on top.

A fallen oak has a log length of 4–7 blocks and the stump is 75% covered with vines.

History[]

Java Edition Classic
0.0.14a					Added oaks.
0.0.14a_08					The shape of oak has been changed.
0.0.15a (Multiplayer Test 1)					The shape of the oak has been changed.
Java Edition Indev
0.31		20091223-2			Lighting changes. Leaves now diffuse skylight, causing the shadows they cast under trees.
0.31		20100109			Lighting changes.
Java Edition Infdev
20100227-1					Trees temporarily removed to test basic infinite world functionality.
20100320					Re-added trees.
20100327					Trees regenerate after the world is reloaded.
20100330					Trees no longer regenerate.
20100413					Added fancy oaks, using parts of Paul Spooner's Forester editor script.^[3]^[4]
20100420					Fancy oaks can be grown with saplings.
20100607					Reverted back to old tree code.
20100616-1					Leaves now use opaque texture when "Graphics: Fast" is set in options.
20100616-1					Trees no longer have logs inside of leaves.
20100618					Trees now have logs inside of leaves, once again.
Java Edition Alpha
v1.2.0		preview			With the addition of biomes, the color of leaves has been changed.
Java Edition Beta
1.2					Oak trees no longer generate in Taigas.
1.3					Added smooth lighting.
1.5					Birch and spruce trees can now be grown using saplings. Old saplings either stayed as oak saplings or became either birch or spruce saplings.
1.8		Pre-release			The Swampland biome was added, with a new swamp oak, which is of more uniform size and has vines growing on them. There is no way to grow these trees; oak saplings grow normal oak trees. A bush-shaped variety of oak was removed.
1.8		Pre-release			Lighting changes.
Java Edition
1.3.2		pre			Fancy oaks now generate with sideways logs.
1.7.2		13w36a			Fancy oaks no longer naturally generate in forest biomes. Jeb explained it was due to issues in the large tree generator code that caused severe performance issues.^[5]
1.7.2		13w36a			Oaks now generate in several new biomes, such as roofed forest and savanna.
1.8		14w25a			The model of oak leaves when "Graphics: Fast" is set in options has been changed.
1.8		14w25b			The model of oak leaves when "Graphics: Fast" is set in options has been changed, once again.^[6]
1.8.2		pre4			Big oak and dark oak branches no longer replace solid blocks.
1.9		15w44a			Fancy oaks now generate in forest biomes again, thanks to an FPS fix provided by Spooner.^[7]
1.10		16w20a			Lone oaks can now rarely generate in plains and sunflower plains biomes.
1.14		18w43a			The textures of oak leaves and logs have been changed.
		18w47a			The textures of oak logs have been changed.
		18w47b			The texture of oak log top has been changed, once again.
1.17		21w11a			Changed lighting.
1.18		21w39a			The default brightness has been changed from "Moody" to 50.
1.21.5					Naturally generated oak trees in forest biomes now generate with leaf litter surrounding them. Bedrock-exclusive oak fallen trees are finally added as features.
Pocket Edition Alpha
Pre-release					Added oaks. Leaves tinted with #339933.
v0.1.0					Leaves now use opaque texture when "Graphics: Fast" is set in options.
v0.2.1					Replaced oak logs with spruce logs.
v0.2.1 alpha2					The texture of oak leaves has been changed.
v0.3.2					The tint of oak leaves has been changed to #48b518.
v0.3.3					Lighting changes.
v0.4.0					Replaced spruce logs with oak logs.
v0.7.0					Added smooth lighting.
v0.8.0		build 1			The textures and models of oak leaves have been changed.
v0.9.0		build 1			Added fancy oak, swamp oak, and version-exclusive fallen and dying trees.
					The models of oak leaves now have randomly rotated top textures. The texture of oak leaves now tinted with biome colors.
					Cold-en oak trees (spruce trees shaped like oak trees) no longer generate.
v0.12.1		build 1			Leaves in snowy biomes now gradually become frost-covered during snowfall.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The textures of oak leaves and logs have been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU1	CU1	1.00	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added oak, spruce, and birch trees.
TU12	CU1	1.00			Added jungle trees.
TU27	CU15	1.18			Added dark oak and acacia wood, but without their own leaves or saplings.
TU31	CU19	1.22	Patch 3		Added dark oak and acacia saplings.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Oak" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[]

In real life, oak is a genus of trees known as Quercus.

Gallery[]

Renders[]

Oak with Bee Nest
Small Fancy Oak
Fancy Oak
Swamp Oak
Oak at meeting point 3 of villages

Screenshots[]

Oak trees.
Fancy oaks with leaves removed.
A balloon oak tree.
An oak.
A Fancy oak.
Wild balloon oak tree.
A fallen oak in a village.
Two balloon oak and small jungle trees on the border of a jungle.
An oak tree loaded after birch and spruce were added.
A birch and a balloon oak tree sharing a canopy.

Odd generation[]

A giant oak tree generated in the wrong biome.
An oak tree that was generated over a lava pit. The dirt under it was replaced by stone.
An unsupported tree.
A tree generated next to a lava lake, which caught on fire.
A fallen oak with some logs in midair.
A fallen oak where most of the logs are lower than the base.
An oak with two different leaf colors.
A fallen oak where most of the logs are floating directly above a river.

Developer screenshots[]

First image of trees. 0.0.14a development.
"Cross-cut" of the tree.
Notch posted this image of the new fancy trees with code provided to him by Paul Spooner.
Trees damaged by "beavers" according to Jeb.
Image from Dinnerbone of a fallen tree in Java Edition.