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100 Species #49: Northern red oak
May. 14th, 2011 06:54 am
This little oak (Probably Quercus rubra) is sprouting from an acorn that a squirrel most likely buried near one of the perennial beds.
Left alone for a hundred years, our yard would turn into a mixed forest of red oak and Norway maple. In fact, if human activity in eastern Massachusetts halted altogether, the whole place would be mostly mixed deciduous forest in a few decades. It wouldn't look like the forest that was present when European colonization took place: the American chestnut and American elm trees are gone, and new trees like Norway maple and Tree of heaven are practically naturalized. A larger effect might be the grazing white-tailed deer, unchecked by predators, they have helped make certain forest plants extremely rare. Eventually the wolves will spread back to New England, and without human opposition the mountain lions will too, and some equilibrium might be restored.
But I digress. The nearest oak trees are two yards away, and yet squirrels have seen fit to bury enough acorns in my yard that I've pulled six or eight of these saplings already, and discover one or two more every day. I love Northern red oak, but I don't want any in this yard. They provide great habitat for wildlife, and become very impressive trees, but I simply don't want to deal with the acorn clean-up.
Oaks can be broadly divided into the white oaks, with rounded lobes on their leaves, and the red oaks with pointed lobes. This sapling has pointed lobes, and the nearest oaks are Northern red oaks. I have pulled some that look like pin oak saplings as well. Northern red oak appears frequently on this blog, mostly accounting to the large numbers of huge specimens in The Riverway and in Franklin Park. It was 365 urban species #277
Urban Nature Pictures 12/30
Dec. 30th, 2010 08:49 pm
Babbling Brook (the water that leaves Ward's Pond).
( The sun goes down over Jamaica Plain and Brookline )
Urban Nature Pictures 2/13
Feb. 13th, 2010 07:51 pm
Witch hazel with Sears building in background.
I keep wanting to post pictures of the monumentally huge red oaks in the Riverway, but they are hard to capture in a photograph. This is the closest I've come yet. This tree is about 200 years old, give or take a few decades.
Urban Nature Pictures day 30
Jan. 31st, 2010 09:53 am
You can so much more in the winter. The street is Longwood Ave, the big building is part of the storied and controversial Longwood Towers. You can also see the trolley tracks and the train tunnel under Longwood Ave. The big trees are northern red oaks, old enough to have been standing by the river when Olmsted designed the park. The little ess shaped tree is a flowering dogwood I've tried to photograph many times.
Sunday dogwalk in Olmsted Park
Jan. 28th, 2007 04:00 pm
A light snow made for a pretty landscape in Olmsted Park today. This is my favorite view of Ward's Pond.
( nine more pictures and a video )
365 Urban Species. #277: Northern Red Oak
Oct. 6th, 2006 09:24 pm
Photos by
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urbpan. This row of stately northern red oaks lines a street running along Brighton and Brookline.Urban species #277: Northern red oak Quercus rubra
Oak trees--there are more than 500 species of them--have long been symbolic of strength, wisdom, and longevity. In Europe or the northeast of North America, the oaks may be the biggest trees in the forest, and their wood has always been among the most valuable. Oaks can roughly be divided between "white" oaks, with rounded leaf-lobes, and "red" oaks, with pointed leaf-lobes. White oaks are stronger and more valued, but do not do as well in the city. Their roots need more room than the compressed soil, asphalt, and concrete landscape can give them. The red oaks, on the other hand, do fairly well, and a number of red oak species are popular street trees.
Northern red oaks grow quickly, and can grow to impressive dimensions. Some street trees reach to 70 feet tall or more, even with the weight of cars and sidewalks on their roots. They are exceptional shade trees, and their foliage changes from rich green to a range of golden brown, to rusty, to scarlet, in autumn. The fruit of all oak trees is the familiar acorn, a tempting lump of starchy food in an adamant package. A whole suite of rodents--the tree squirrels--has evolved to take advantage of them, and to some degree oak trees depend on squirrels to bury their acorns, to reproduce. Native Americans made use of acorns for food, but red oak acorns were not their first choice; white oak acorns are far less bitter, but still require several changes of water to remove the tannins that make them inedible to humans. Acorns provide winter food for animals as diverse as non-migratory Canada geese, wild turkeys, woodpeckers, deer, raccoons, and many others. Over 200 different species of organisms produce galls in which to inhabit oak trees, and countless others live in their bark, branches, and cavities.
A fallen northern red oak leaf next to an acorn, a gall, and a honey locust leaflet, on a sidewalk in Allston.
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