SCARLET OAK
Quercus coccinea Muench.
Growth Form: Medium tree to 70 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 2½ feet; crown narrow but open.
Bark: Reddish-brown, shallowly fissured when mature.
Twigs: Slender, brown, smooth; leaf scars alternate, but crowded near the tip, half-round, slightly elevated, with several bundle traces; pith star-shaped in cross-section.
Buds: Pointed, reddish-brown, hairy at the tip, up to ¼ inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades divided more than half-way to the middle into 5-7 bristle-tipped lobes, bright green, shiny and smooth on the upper surface, paler and with tufts of hairs along the veins on the lower surface, up to 6½ inches long and 4 inches broad; leafstalks up to 2½ inches long, slender, usually smooth.
Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing when the leaves begin to unfold, minute, without petals, the staminate in slender, drooping catkins, the pistillate in groups of 1 or 2.
Fruit: Acorns solitary or paired, with or without stalks, the nut oval or hemispherical, up to ¾ inch across, reddish-brown with occasional darker rings around it, enclosed up to ½ its length by the cup, the cup thin, top-shaped, reddish-brown, finely hairy.
Wood: Hard, heavy, coarse-grained, pale brown.