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The sessile oak, or quercus petraea, is a species of oak which grows over much of Europe and parts of western Asia. Someone or other designated the tree as the national tree of Wales, and Bruce suggests derwen ddigoes as the Welsh name. Derwen ddigoes translates literally as 'legless oak'.

Perhaps the marketing executives at Marstons who came up with the name "The Sessile Oak" for their new pub next to Parc y Scarlets were cracking a little joke.

The Sessile Oak

The pub stands on a site leased to the Scarlets by Carmarthenshire County Council for 150 years. Despite never having paid anything for the lease, the club nevertheless received a hefty chunk of the £850,000 paid by Marstons for the plot. Quite how much the club received, the council refuses to say, although the club will presumably have to disclose the figure when it publishes its next set of accounts.

It is also rumoured that legal fees consumed an unusually large share of the proceeds, something which perhaps reflects the rather unusual nature of the transaction.

While the terms and conditions of the deal remain secret, what does seem clear is that the council did not consider it necessary to insert a clause ensuring that the brewery group respected the Welsh language, which is entirely absent from the bungalow-like exterior of the pub.

Of all the regional clubs, the Scarlets have the strongest connections with the language. A recognition of those traditions, perhaps choosing something like Y Sosban, would have cost nothing in a deal which was otherwise all about money.

The sessile oak is not just the designated national tree of Wales, but also the symbol of a rather more endangered species, the Welsh Conservatives. Perhaps that was part of the little joke as well.