Where to Find Dark Oak in Minecraft

Dark oak trees naturally spawn only in the Dark Forest biome, as a large 2×2 size tree. If you come across a woodland mansion in the dark forest, you can navigate around and find either a tree chopping room or a nature room, where you’ll see a 1×1 variation of the dark oak tree.

Although they only spawn naturally in the dark forest, they are also very abundant in the biome. These large trees provide a constant shade to the entire biome together with the huge mushrooms that dot the area, giving the dark forest its name.

These trees are also large enough with their 2×2 trunks to provide you with what you need with just a few trees to harvest. Plus, if you plant dark oak saplings, they grow faster than most trees, so there’s no need to worry about finding them again.

Table of Contents

What is Dark Oak

Dark oak is a variation of the oak tree, but instead comes with a darker-colored trunk than the normal one. Unlike the oak tree which can grow in many kinds of biomes, the dark oak tree only specifically grows in the dark forest biome. Also, the dark oak tree only grows with a 2×2 trunk, and dark oak saplings will also grow with the same size. Additionally, dark oak trees might often generate with an extra block right before the leaf blocks, which represents a branch of the tree.

Dark oak trees with 1×1 trunks will only spawn inside a woodland mansion, which are massive structures that can also only be found in the dark forest biome. Found specifically inside the tree chopping room or the nature room, this variation only spawns in this area and not anywhere else in the game.

Some rooms in the woodland mansion, aside from the tree chopping room and nature room, are also made up of blocks derived from the dark oak tree. You can find the dark oak variation of planks, stairs, logs, and saplings in some rooms of a woodland mansion.

If you play the Bedrock and Education Editions, the dark oak tree can generate as a dying tree, which is characterized by the vines that fully cover the exposed areas of the trunk of the tree.

How to Know You’re Near

To know that you’re near dark oak trees, you need to be able to identify the dark forest biome. It’s quite easy to find the dark forest biome, as you simply need to find an area where the density of the trees becomes thicker. The area is heavily shaded, due to the large dark oak trees that cluster close enough that their foliage almost entirely covers the forest floor.

If you are doing an aerial survey, then an easy way to find a dark forest biome would be to find red and sometimes brown patches among a mass of green, indicating the red and brown huge mushrooms that can be found in the dark forest biome.

Items from Dark Oak Trees

The main block you can get from the dark oak tree would be the dark oak log, harvested from the trunk. If you use an axe on the dark oak log, you would instead get stripped dark oak logs. Similar to oak trees, breaking the leaves of a dark oak tree has a chance to drop apples. Aside from apples, dark oak saplings also have a chance to drop from breaking the leaves. To get a dark oak plank, you will have to craft them by placing the dark oak log in the inventory crafting grid or a crafting table.

If you are in the Bedrock and Education Editions, you can harvest the vines that are in the trunk of the tree by using shears.

How to Plant Dark Oak

If you want to just make a farm for dark oak trees to avoid the hassle of going across the overworld, you can also just plant dark oak trees. Granted, you still need to grab dark oak saplings, which you can only get from dark oak trees.

To plant dark oak trees, you will need to prepare a plot of dirt, grass blocks, coarse dirt, or podzols, with a good source of light. For a single dark oak tree, you need four dark oak saplings, placed in a 2×2 area. Note that having only one of them will not grow into a dark oak tree.

The tree also needs vertical clearances for it to grow. You will need a 3×3 unobstructed column that extends 7 blocks above the saplings, which then expands into a 5×5 column at the last 3 blocks for the foliage. However, you do not need a horizontal clearance around the saplings themselves.

For all that effort of planting the tree, at least the dark oak tree grows faster than most trees.