The Oaks 



and texture; and they hang on supple, pendant branches, Hke a 

 willow's. The dainty acorns in their saucers are often needed to 

 convince observers that the tree is truly an oak. But only the 

 young trees are willowy in habit. The oak characters soon assert 

 themselves. 



Naturally, willow oaks grow on the margins of swamps, but 

 they thrive as a street and shade tree, and are especially beautiful 

 in the autumnal yellow of their foliage. A large tree grows in 

 John Bartram's garden in Philadelphia; a small one seems to be 

 holding its own without protection in the Arnold Arboretum at 

 Boston, though its shoots are often nipped by frost. 



The Shingle Oak, or Laurel Oak (Q. imhricaria, Michx.) 

 A tree 60 to 100 feet high, pyramidal, becoming round headed at 

 length; branches slender. Bark pale brown, scaly; twigs smooth. 

 Wood reddish brown, heavy, hard, coarse grained. Buds 

 small, acute, brownish. Leaves deciduous, alternate, oblong, 

 usually entire, 4 to 6 inches long, i to 2 inches wide, shining, dark 

 green above, paler and pubescent beneath; petioles short. Flowers 

 in May, with opening leaves, tomentose, greenish. Acorns 

 biennial, J to f inch long, stalked, solitary or paired; nut broad, 

 short, pointed; cup shallow, scaly, reddish; kernel bitter. 

 Preferred habitat, rich bottom lands. Distribution, Pennsyl- 

 vania to Georgia; west to Nebraska and Arkansas. Uses: 

 Lumber for clapboards and shingles. A hardy and beautiful 

 park tree. 



The pyramidal shape of the young shingle oak and the hori- 

 zontal and drooping postures of its slender branches remind us 

 strongly of the pin oak. The "pins," however, are missing, as 

 we will observe when the tree is bare; and the foliage in summer 

 quickly corrects any lalse impressions. Even from a distance the 

 foliage masses of the two trees differ distinctly. The clefts and 

 angles that make so large a part of pin-oak leaves are all missing 

 in those of the shingle oak. Willow or peach leaves are more like 

 these plain-margined ones. The wayfaring man will never imagine 

 this tree to be an oak until he sees the acorns. 



The shingle oak grows quickly, as the long, leafy shoots in 

 early summer prove. The star-shaped arrangement of the leaves 

 on the short branches is most interesting, and there is a wavy curl 

 in the margins, as if they would each turn aside to let the sunlight 

 in to the branches less favourably situated. So little interference 



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