We are located in South Texas Hill Country and we have what looks like Live Oak trees all over our property. The trees are not deciduous and have small acorns, but they also have a round, brown, nutlike ball hanging from them that ranges from 1/3 inch to about 1 inch in diameter. When you break them open, they appear to have a single seed in the center. I at first thought about galls, but they do not deform any branches and seem to just be growing normally on the trees. They are also uniformly round, and are on most of the oak trees, if not all.
Are these Live Oak trees, and are these balls some type of fruit, or what?
Thanks.