Oak Leaf Identification

[thewoodlands]

Here ya go.....
(broken link removed to http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/pages/compare-oaks.htm)

Nice site Hogwidz, I'll get a picture of the bark this weekend.


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[Brewmonster]

Wow, you must be a real horticulturist, using some words I never even heard before.

Not my words, G&WNut;, just a quote from an Illinois Extension agent. But you're right, marcesence was certainly a new one on me!

 

[muncybob]

WOW!! Never realised there are so many different types of oak!! I like to joke with my wife when in the woods and pointing out a tree. I'll ask her if she knows what it is and after her guessing or not answering I'll reply, it's firewood

 

[clemsonfor]

There are i think over 100 species of oak? I think there is close to 40 that grow around me? Pretty bad im a forester and cant remember all this? I had another forester, not really one i trust there were something like 150 or more??

 

[thewoodlands]

Here ya go.....
(broken link removed to http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/pages/compare-oaks.htm)

Here are some pictures of the Oak Tree the leaves were under.

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[rideau]

Could be a Pin Oak. I have one about 30 inch diameter in front yard of home in Westchester NY...Probably 118 years old. Tallest tree in the area, as in gets hit by lightning. Lots of oaks around NYC because no forest. Oak is indiginous to this area. But Oaks need lots of light. Conversely few oaks in Northern termperature end stage forest....natural succession ultimately leads to Sugar Maple /Beech forest with hickory, cherry, ironwood, ash and birch - and possibly oak -at the fringes, as well as cedar and the occasional pine. Interior of the woods all but Beech and Maple are crowded out. My woodlot in Southern Ontario : Beech keeps its leaves all winter, my few white oak lose there leaves long after the maple, ironwood does not keep its leaves as long as oak. Only Beech keeps leaves right through winter. Beech also has skin which sheds as opposed to bark which keeps getting thicker. I swear that is why I'm always sweeping dust in my home in the middle of the woods....Darn porcupines ring the beech and kill them. An on going battle. Anyway, I think it may be Pin Oak. Looks like my leaves, my bark. Again, what are the acorns lie?

 

[thewoodlands]

All the leaves under the tree were frozen in by ice so I did not find any acorns yet, looked around the tree and still never found any acorns, once we get a good stretch of warm weather I'll check it out.


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[clemsonfor]

Could be a Pin Oak. I have one about 30 inch diameter in front yard of home in Westchester NY...Probably 118 years old. Tallest tree in the area, as in gets hit by lightning. Lots of oaks around NYC because no forest. Oak is indiginous to this area. But Oaks need lots of light. Conversely few oaks in Northern termperature end stage forest....natural succession ultimately leads to Sugar Maple /Beech forest with hickory, cherry, ironwood, ash and birch - and possibly oak -at the fringes, as well as cedar and the occasional pine. Interior of the woods all but Beech and Maple are crowded out. My woodlot in Southern Ontario : Beech keeps its leaves all winter, my few white oak lose there leaves long after the maple, ironwood does not keep its leaves as long as oak. Only Beech keeps leaves right through winter. Beech also has skin which sheds as opposed to bark which keeps getting thicker. I swear that is why I'm always sweeping dust in my home in the middle of the woods....Darn porcupines ring the beech and kill them. An on going battle. Anyway, I think it may be Pin Oak. Looks like my leaves, my bark. Again, what are the acorns lie?

Nope this is a totally incorrect statement Im not saying its not or is a Pin OAK they dont grow around here so i dont really know. BUt im talkin about Oaks needing lots of light. Totally incorrect and things like this is what get internet lore spread. Oak is an TOLLERANT species (some of them are some arent Pin oak is intollerant i looked, this may be correect for this species, but not all). This is forestry speak for it grows in the SHADE. It is "tollerant" of shade. What your saying makes little sense as Oak is in the Beech family, it may be the case for Pin oak but most all oaks are tollerant to some degree. The maple and beech creeping up hills in most cases is from the exclusion of fire. It has to do with the evolutionary systems of the growth patterns in the oak and beech trees. Oak is more tollerant of fire while beech and maple are not, which is why historically they were more down slopes where fires did not burn as intense or at all, down in low areas.

 

[rideau]

OK, so I have to read some more. Per my books, sugar maple/beech is the climax forest in the northern temperate forest. My woods are that, and the few white oaks I have are at the margins. I'm one of a few provincial heritage designated woodlots(unfortunately), & claimed to be ideal woodlot by Provincial Ministry of Natural Resources, who have walked the property wiith me. They expected Maple, Beech, Hickory, cherry and ash and found all...Know the beech is in the same family...but it outcompetes white oak here for sure, and I have both read and heard that oak is succeeded by maple and beech...so I'll read some more. Which books about trees do you recommend?

 

[clemsonfor]

Silvics of North america is the bible on tree species. I refer to it many times but i beleive it is more a a condensed version of species and there characteristics. I would love a copy but cannot afford one but you can look up stuff about species onlice as its posted i think it may be a USFS publication?

I did not realize that you were in Cantinadia (as i call it) so yea your hardwoods are a bit different than here in the south. We dont have all the hard maples just the dreaded soft maple known as red maple.

Here red maple is not a late succession tree. Its early. Our oak Hickory forests are late succession as most our oaks are tollerant like i said. Beech creeps up the hills with the exclusion of fire but is usually found no more than halfway up a slope. Since we lost chestnut trees which they say was our major componet years ago in the forests hundreds of years ago.

Anyway i seriously dont mean to sound hard on you, its my personality, i call it like i see it and am sorry.

The problem with books (i a forester by education so i dont really just freely read on the subject) is that there is so much theory and reasearch and as in anything you have differeing opinions on the way things use to be. Van Lear is a huge wealth of knowledge on the subject of fire and southern Hardwoods. Read VanLear (david) et al about excluding fire and fire dependent ecosystems. Of course his reasearch in in the south so it has no bearing on where you are. We are not taught about northern hardwoods in southern school as they assume we wont work in the north and if we do we can learn. Anyway i was able to be one of the last classes that he taught at Clemson before he retired.
Some will argue what a climax forest truly is in a certain area, but like i said in the south the only reason you have beech on top of hills is the exclusion of fire. Beech is a thin smooth barked tree that cant withstand fire like a thick barked Northern red oak for example. Im not talking raging california wildfires here just creeping to moderate fires. Any fire over the years if to hot can cause rot and dieback in quality hardwoods and if it gets to hot you will get stand degridation as the oak is firescared causing rot in that most valuable first log.If you have solid red maple on the the higher areas you have had your stand highgraded through the years as red maple is not a terribly long lived species and with tollerant oaks growing underneath them they will be replaced as they die out.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Red oak. Pin oak is indeed in the red oak family, but the bark is much smoother than red oak. Also, pin oak is the one that has so many branches it makes the cutting very time consuming. Typically the bottom branches will be pointing down and will be dead. They are hard as a rock when dead too.