RED OAK* 



(Quercus Rubra) 



WHEN a lumberman speaks of red oak he may mean any one of a 

 good many kinds of trees, but when a botanist or forester uses 

 that name he means one particular species and no other. For that 

 reason there is much uncertainty as to what species is in the lumber- 

 man's mind when he speaks of red oak. It means more to him than a 

 single species, depending to a considerable extent upon the part of the 

 country where he is doing business. If he is in the Gulf states, and has 

 in mind a tree which grows there, he does not refer to the tree known to 

 botanists as red oak. He may mean the Texan or southern red oak 

 (Quercus texana), or the willow oak (Quercus phellos), or the yellow oak 

 (Quercus velutina), or any one of several others which grow in that 

 region; but the typical red oak does not grow farther south than the 

 mountains of northern Georgia; and any one who is cutting oak south or 

 southwest of there, is cutting other than the true red oak. That does 

 not imply that he is handling something inferior, for very fine oak grows 

 there ; but in an effort to separate the commercial black oaks into respec- 

 tive species, it is necessary to define them by metes and bounds of ranges 

 as well as to describe them by characteristics of leaves, acorns, and wood. 

 The time will probably never come in this country when the sawmill 

 man will pile each species of oak separately in his yard, and sell separate- 

 ly; but the tendency is in that direction. The twenty-five or more 

 black oaks in this country all have some characteristics in common ; but 

 they are by no means all valuable alike, or all useful for the same 

 purposes. For that reason, the demands of trade require, and will 

 require more and more as higher utilization is reached, that certain 

 kinds of red oak or black oak be sold separately. 



What lumbermen call red oaks, speaking in the plural, botanists 



*Red oak belongs to the black oak group. Other species usually listed as 

 black oaks are Pin oak (Quercus palustris), Georgia oak (Quercus georgiana) , Texan 

 red oak (Quercus texana), Scarlet oak (Quercus coccinea), Yellow oak (Quercus 

 velutina), California black oak (Quercus calif arnica), Turkey oak (Quercus caiesbcn), 

 Spanish oak (Quercus digitata), Black Jack oak (Quercus marilandica), Water oak 

 (Quercus nigra), Willow oak (Quercus phettos). Laurel oak (Quercus laurifolia), Blue 

 Jack oak (Quercus brevifolia), Shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria), Whiteleaf oak 

 (Quercus hvfioleuca), Highland oak (Quercus wislizent), Myrtle oak (Quercus myrti- 

 folia), California live oak (Quercus agrifolia sometimes classed with white oaks). 

 Canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolefris), an evergreen oak with no English name, 

 (Quercus tomentella), Price oak (Quercus pricei), Morehus oak (Quercus morehus), 

 Tanbark oak (Quercus densiflora), Barren oak (Quercus pumda). 



259 



