The Oaks 



This tree, though it was late March, was still holding some of 

 its old leaves. On twigs destitute of leaves I found a leaf stem, 

 here and there, frayed into many threads, showing how tough its 

 fibres are. 



My black oak leans up against a bluff, and thrusts its giant 

 arms out over the wide roadway. One sided as the situation 

 compelled it to grow, it is yet a majestic tree, "framed in the 

 prodigality of Nature." From the path below I can just touch 

 its lower limb with the ten-foot pruning shears; but by climbing 

 the bluff I walk right into the treetop. Here I go to see things 

 happen in the spring days. 



The buds open and the shoots set with leaves push rapidly 

 out. The whole treetop flushes crimson in the morning sunshine, 

 and there is a "pale moonbeam's light" gleaming through it. 

 Can it be dewdrops pearling the young leaves? I ask the question, 

 and the tree answers it as soon as I get near enough to examine a 

 spray. The red glow is from crinkly, half-awake, baby leaves, 

 and their brilliance is softened by a silky covering of white hairs. 

 This is especially thick on the under side, but the silvery mist 

 over the treetop lasts only a day, or until the leaves are grown 

 large and self-reliant enough to get on without such protection. 

 Then the fuzz is suddenly shed from the upper sides of the leaves, 

 but the under surfaces are more or less coated throughout the 

 summer with a dull scurfy down. 



The coarseness of the leaves is one trait that distinguishes the 

 species from the red and scarlet oaks, whose leaves it often imitates 

 in form. Crumple a leaf of each in your hands. The red oak 

 is intermediate between the leathery, harsh texture of the black, 

 and the thinness and delicacy of the scarlet. The incisions in 

 black oak leaves are rounded and deep, their bristly lobes point 

 outward as often as they incline forward. 



The bloom of black oak may be profuse or scant; the tree 

 has its "off years." As the leaves lose their red the flowers 

 take up the theme, and glow with ruddy stigmas and fringed 

 tassels of stamens among the half-grown foliage. The lustiest 

 shoots set acorns — sometimes a pair under each leaf. While 

 the new ones are swelling and forming their little basal cups, on 

 twigs a year older ambitious acorns of a larger growth are hurrying 

 through their second summer to be ready to fall in October. 



1 his species is the type of the black or biennial-fruited oaks — 

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