BUR OAK 



(Quercus Macrocarpd) 



THIS splendid oak was named by Michaux, a French traveler and 

 botanist who visited many parts of eastern and southeastern 

 United States more than a century ago. The botanical name macro- 

 car pa, means "large fruit." The bur oak bears small acorns in the 

 North, and very large ones in the South. They are sometimes two inches 

 long and one and a half inches wide, and "large-fruit" oak is an appro- 

 priate name for the tree in the South, but would not be near the northern 

 limit of its range. 



It is known in different regions as bur oak, mossy cup oak, overcup 

 oak, scrub oak, and mossy cup white oak. Bur oak is a name suggested 

 by the acorn which has a fringe round the cup like a bur. This is the 

 oak which gave name to James Fenimore Cooper's book, "Oak Openings" 

 a romance of early days in Michigan. Oak openings were areas where 

 fires had killed the old timber, and a young growth had sprouted from 

 stumps and roots, or had spning up from seeds buried in the ground 

 beyond the reach of the fire. Some of those tracts were very large, and 

 they were not confined to any one state. They existed in Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, and elsewhere. Bur oak, because it is a 

 vigorous species, was able to take possession of such burned areas, to the 

 exclusion of most others. 



Few American oaks have a wider range. It extends from Nova 

 Scotia to Manitoba, and in the United States is found in most states east 

 of the Rocky Mountains. It extends farther west and northwest than 

 any other commercial oak of the Atlantic states. In a range of so great 

 geographical extent the bur oak finds it necessary to adapt itself to many 

 kinds of land. It prefers low tracts where water is sufficient but not 

 excessive, but it grows well in more elevated situations, provided the 

 soil is fertile. It is not a poor-land tree. In the primeval forests it 

 attained largest size in Indiana and Illinois. The largest trees were from 

 150 to 170 feet high and four to seven in diameter. Sizes varied from 

 that extreme down to the other extreme near the outskirts of its range 

 where the growth was stunted. Large quantities of very fine logs have 

 been cut from trunks from two to four feet in diameter, and forty to 

 sixty feet to the limbs. 



The leaves of bur oak are from six to twelve inches long, simple and 

 alternate; the petioles are thick with flattened and enlarged bases; the 

 leaves are wedge-shaped at the base, and have from five to seven long, 

 irregular lobes, the terminal one very large and broad. They are dark 



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