Epicormics in 13-year-old Quercus petraea: small effect of provenance and large influence of branches and growth unit limitsEpicormiques chez le chêne sessile âgé de 13 ans : un faible effet provenance et un effet légèrement plus fort du nombre de branches et d’unités de croissance

• The provenance effect on epicormics is poorly documented and restricted to epicormic shoots. Our objective was to characterize the relationship between epicormics and provenance on 13-year-old Quercus petraea trees, taking into account their growth traits.• On the growth units (GU) studied, epicormics were essentially isolated buds (95%) and they were mainly located at branch bases, secondarily on GU limits and marginally on lateral position. Provenance effect was very small on the number of epicormics and slightly larger on the number of branches and GU limits. On the contrary, the growth situation-independently from provenance-proved to have a larger effect on the 2 latter growth traits.• Altogether, these results clearly show the predominant effect of morphological traits and thus of ontogeny. This opens important research perspectives: how growth conditions and genetics (at progeny and individual levels) influence height growth, setting and fate of axillary buds on the one hand and fate of epicormic buds inserted directly on the stem, or at branch bases on the other hand.