THE RED OAK

The red oak is the tree most likely to be mistaken for the black oak. The bark is brown, with a decided red tinge. The twigs are also reddish, and the wood is red-brown. The inner bark has the same tinge instead of the orange-coloured lining the black oak bark has.

The red oak is a large, stately tree, sometimes 150 feet in height, and far more symmetrical than the black oak. Its leaves vary greatly in the depth of their marginal clefts, but in general they are oval in outline, and their lobes and sinuses are triangular. These lobes always point forward, rather than outward, along the sides of the leaf, and they always end in the sharp, spiny points that belong to the leaves of all the trees that fall into the Black Oak Group. Red oak leaves are thinner than those of black oak, and not so harsh when crumpled in the hand. Their linings are pale green and smooth in summer. Their autumn colour is deep red.

The buds of the red oak are pointed, smooth, reddish, and about one-fourth of an inch long. They are much smaller, and lack the down of the buds of the black oak.

Red oak acorns are the most distinct feature of this species. They are large, often over an inch in length, and broad, and they sit in saucers, instead of cups. These saucers are made of close scales, and they curl in closely at the top as if to tighten their hold on the nut, which extends two-thirds its height above this rim. The kernel is white, and extremely bitter.

THE SCARLET OAK

The scarlet oak need not be confused with either the red or black oaks, for it is a far more dainty tree than either in its trim trunk, graceful curving branches, very slim twigs, and deeply cut leaves. In form, these leaves are oval, but so much of the “cloth” is cut away by the four or six deep bays along the sides that a small amount of green is left to do leaf duty. The slender lobes are strengthened by the branching veins, each of which ends in a spiny point. These almost skeleton leaves are beautifully lustrous and thin, a trifle paler beneath and sometimes hairy tufted at the veins. They are rarely six inches long, and the side lobes sometimes measure five inches from tip to tip. The leaf stems are long and flexible, and the whole tree top is as light and feathery and tremulous in a breeze as that of a honey locust or a willow. In autumn the scarlet oak blazes like a torch above the duller reds and browns of the woods, and keeps its brilliancy later than any other oak.

The acorn differs from the black oak in being smaller and daintier, and in having its cup drawn in tightly at the rim. The scales are smooth and close-pressed; the kernel white and bitter.

THE PIN OAK

The pin oak has foliage much like the scarlet oak, but coarser and not so lustrous. Often a pin oak tree has leaves that approach the red oak in form, and these lead to confusion, if leaves alone are consulted in determining the name of the tree. There are better signs in any pin oak that set it apart from its larger-leaved relative. Consult the acorns. They are plump little nuts, as broad as long, rarely measuring one-half inch either way, pale brown, streaked with black in straight lines, down from the pointed tips, and they sit in shallow, saucer-like cups made of close reddish scales. As they fall, the nuts roll out of the cups, which are lined with hair. The kernel is white and bitter and yet, late in winter, it is very common to find them gnawed open by some hungry little four-foot, whose winter store threatens to run short.