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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
An acorn is the nut of the oak tree. It is small, brown and wears a little hat, which it has never had to take off indoors because it is never indoors.[1]
According to the proverb, mighty oaks from little acorns grow. According to anyone who has stood underneath one in autumn, little acorns from mighty oaks fall.
The cap of an acorn is called a cupule. It fits the acorn perfectly, a feat tailors have studied for centuries without once managing to repeat it. Once removed, the cap can be held between two thumbs and blown across to make a whistle, which is its only known career after the acorn.[2]
Squirrels bury acorns to eat later and then fail to find many of them. Some of the forgotten acorns grow into oaks, which means that a good deal of woodland is, technically, a squirrel's lost property.[3]
An acorn takes many decades to become a mature oak, growing from roughly the size of a pebble to roughly the size of a house. Surveyors describe this increase as “considerable”. The acorn does not describe it at all, having by then become a tree.
Most acorns do not become oaks. They become acorns that did not become oaks, a category so large that foresters no longer count it and refer to it simply as “the ground”.