Whether deciduous or evergreen, oak trees all over North Texas are helping create a yellow dusting on surfaces outside. Clusters of catkins appear as the new leaf buds begin to break. As the male oak flowers mature, they send out pollen to ride the wind and hopefully reach a female flower. The female flowers are inconspicuous and do not enjoy a beneficial relationship with pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Because wind pollination is a rather haphazard method, a LOT of pollen is produced by the male flowers. Park you car under an oak tree while the catkins are shedding pollen and it will develop a thin yellow coating on it.
The images in this post are of a live oak. You can click on them to make them larger. The pulled back view gives you an idea of just how prolific the male oak flowers are. You can also see a handful of last year's leaves still on the tree as the new growth has gotten a good start. Live oaks don't lose their leaves in the fall like other oaks. They stay green all winter and are thus labeled as an evergreen tree. Come spring however, last year's leaves begin to shed and the new ones begin to grow.
I labeled the close up image of the new growth on the tree so you can spot a female flower surrounded by a profusion of male flowers. Obviously I did not label all of the male flowers in the picture. The close up of the carpet of leaves under the tree shows fresh spots of pollen on the leaf surfaces about two days after a two day, almost three inch rain event. That rain definitely helped clean off surfaces like my solar panels. Good thing, I had noticed just before the rain that they had a thin yellow film on them. Now they should be much more efficient at turning the sun's rays into electricity.
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