Oak leaf

“ The flowers are as plain and unshowy in size and color as those of the sweet peas of gardens. The seeds are large and satiny. The whole plant is noble in its motions and features, covering the ground with a depth of unconfused leafage which I have never seen equaled by any other plant. The extent of leaf-surface is greater, I think, than that of a large Kentucky oak. It grows, as far as my observation has reached, only upon shores, in a soil composed of broken shells and corals, and extends exactly to the water-line of the highest-reaching waves. The same plant is abundant in Florida. ”

“ The forester usually gets over these difficulties by planting beech, or silver fir, or some other species among the oaks, but in such a way that the oaks are never completely shaded by the other trees—that is to say, he keeps the trees at different ages, the beach, hornbeam, silver fir, spruce, etc., only being allowed to just close in the forest, leaving the leaf-crowns of the oaks to be fully exposed to the light above. ”

“ This makes the trees long and spindly at first, as they run up their leaf-crowns higher and higher, and it is part of the forester's art to select the exact time when he may cut away some of the nurse trees and let in just enough, and not too much, light and air, so that the crowns of the oaks shall fill out more and thicken the stems. For it must never be forgotten that the timber is laid on from substance prepared in the leaves. ”

“ The red oak is a large, stately tree, sometimes 150 feet in height, and far more symmetrical than the black oak. Its leaves vary greatly in the depth of their marginal clefts, but in general they are oval in outline, and their lobes and sinuses are triangular. These lobes always point forward, rather than outward, along the sides of the leaf, and they always end in the sharp, spiny points that belong to the leaves of all the trees that fall into the Black Oak Group. Red oak leaves are thinner than those of black oak, and not so harsh when crumpled in the hand. ”

“ A vast grey trunk, split and riven and hollow, with a single pointed branch rising high above it, dead, too, and grey: not a living twig, not so much as a brown leaf, gives evidence of lingering life. The oak is dead ”

“ In each successive season of growth the young oak develops more leaves than it did before—in other words, the total area of the leaf-surface exposed to the air and sunlight is larger each successive summer than it was the previous one. ”

“ Fig. 21.—A portion of the ultimate
ramifications of the vascular bundles,
showing tracheids only, isolated from
the leaf by maceration.
When young, the leaves are red, gradually becoming a bright apple-green, and finally—in the autumn—becoming russet-brown in color. Young oaks retain their dead leaves till far into the winter, and even old trees usually have some leaves attached till January. The young leaves secrete small quantities of sweet liquid on the superior face of the lamina, and are much visited by bees and wasps; this honey must come through the membrane. ”

“ Fig. 62.—Leaf and Fruit of Red Oak.
Enemies: Like most of the other oaks, this species is comparatively free from insects and disease.
Value for planting: The red oak grows faster and adapts itself better to poor soil conditions than any of the other oaks and is therefore easy to plant and easy to find in the nurseries. It makes an excellent street tree, is equally desirable for the lawn and is hardly surpassed for woodland planting.
Commercial value: The wood is hard and strong but coarse grained, and is used for construction timber, interior finish and furniture. ”

“ Many oak trees have the same habit of leaf variation, so that even a forester has to examine many leaves with care, and with them the buds and the acorns, to make sure that he has called the oak by its right name. ”

“ It commonly attains the size of an oak, and, 212with its straight taper stem, silver bark, and pale-green leaf resembling an expanded hand, is, when in full foliage, a splendid and beautiful tree, and affords a grateful and refreshing shade. ”

“ Where the base of the bud joins the stem the buds of the red oak are more constricted than those of the chestnut oak, and the chestnut oak buds seem more sessile. Alternate leaf-scars. Acorn set in a shallow cup of fine scales. ”

“ Among the broad-leaved family are such trees as the oak, chestnut, hickory, maples, elms, etc.; and among the evergreens or cone-bearing trees are the pines, spruces, hemlocks, firs, and cedars.
The oak family is a very important one, the wood being hard and strong and the tree a sturdy, healthy, and well-known specimen of tree life.
White oak is perhaps the most common member of the oak family. It grows to a very large size and has a leaf of the form shown in Fig. ”

“ Day after day passes in brightness. Morning after morning, you wake to see the same sunshine gilding the tops of the orange-trees, and hear the same concert of birds. All the forest-trees 157 stand in perfected glory; and the leaves have sprung forth with such rapidity and elastic vigor as gives the foliage a wondrous brightness. The black-jack oaks—trees which, for some reason or other, are apt to be spoken of as of small account—have now put forth their large, sharply-cut, oak-shaped leaves. ”

“ The oaks are more tenacious of their leaves than any other deciduous tree, though they are fairly early in showing autumn tints. Long after the reds of other trees of the wood are buried in the brown drifts that cover the roots from the too fierce frosts of winter the rich deep crimsons and red-browns of the oak remain. ”

“ One may fancy the clouds themselves are plants, springing up in the sky-fields at the call of the sun, growing in beauty until they reach their prime, scattering rain and hail like berries and seeds, then wilting and dying.
The mountain live oak, common here and a thousand feet or so higher, is like the live oak of Florida, not only in general appearance, foliage, bark, and wide-branching habit, but in its tough, knotty, unwedgeable wood. ”

“ Near the streams was some grass, and on their banks, and upon the mountain-slope, we observed the oleander, the convolvulus, the pink-flowered valerian, and the retem or broom-plant, the last covered with its straw-coloured and fragrant blossoms. The oak was succeeded by heath and fern, the last beautiful with its small, scarlet blossom; then succeeded lichens and moss, terminating in masses of limestone-rock, with boulders of quartz. ”

“ There is nothing more inspiring than the variety of greens in the spring foliage, the diversity of color in the spring blossoms and the wonderful display of autumnal tints offered by the sweet gum, sassafras, dogwood, black gum, red maple, sugar maple, scarlet oak, blue beech, sorrel tree, ash and gingko. The white bark of the gray birch, the dark bark of the black oak, the gray of the beech, the golden yellow of the mulberry and the mottled bark of the sycamore are interesting comparisons. ”

“ Although, as I have already said, there are eight different kinds of oak-trees growing in our valley and mountains, two of these kinds, the live-oaks and the white oaks, are by far the most common and numerous. As one stands upon the mountain tops or foothills and looks down and over the broad valley, all still and drowsy under the warm afternoon sun, it seems as if you were looking at a single great orchard with the trees in it in close-set regular lines and plots in some places, and irregularly scattered and farther apart in other places. ”

“ There is one objection to the beech which also lies against the white oak—it does not drop its leaves within the space of a few autumn days. The bleached foliage is falling all winter long, thus giving the ground near an untidy aspect. With some, the question of absolute neatness is paramount; with others, leaves are clean dirt, and their rustle in the wind does not cease to be music even after they have fallen. ”

“ There are various other modes of growing oak in forests, but, whatever the system employed, the following facts have to be borne in mind and provided for: The oak is a tree that requires a soil of great depth, and sufficiently open to allow of the free penetration of air and water to the subsoil; consequently many soils, otherwise rich enough, are unsuited for the culture of this tree. Again, young seedlings and plants are apt to suffer from frost unless they are protected by suitable mixtures of other plants ”

“ The woods look gray and bare; for nearly all the leaves have fallen save those of the oak, which are still holding fast to the branches. These oak leaves are brown and stiff and leathery. They crackle and rustle when the wind blows through them. ”

“ The twigs of oak trees are more or less distinctly five-angled, and the winter buds cluster at the ends. This insures a group of young shoots, crowded with leaves, on the ends of branches, and a dense outer dome of foliage on the tree.
Nearly three hundred distinct species of oaks are recognized by botanists, and the list is growing. New species are in the making. For instance, a white oak and a bur oak grow near enough for the wind to "cross-fertilize" their pistillate flowers. The acorns of such mixed parentage produce trees that differ from both parents, yet reveal characteristics of both. ”

“ As we have seen, the forester has to exercise considerable forethought—the outcome of long experience—in growing oak so as to obtain long, clean stems. The natural habit of the tree is to form a short, thick bole and a widely spreading crown, the main branches of which come off not far from the ground. To compel the stem to elongate into a long pole he has to plant other trees with it (as we have seen, beech, spruce, etc.) ”

“ The extraordinary strength in the great, horizontal branches, their breadth and lateral sweep, and the rugged boldness of the trunk have long associated the oak with all that stands for strength, duration, and unswerving vitality. An oak never seems out of place; no matter whether we find it growing in unbroken forests, on a country estate, in a little garden, or by the roadside, it always harmonizes with its surroundings and adds to the composition of the landscape. ”

“ Higher up are red oaks, of various shades of dull red, with yellowish, perhaps black oaks, intermixed, and walnuts now brown, and near the hill-top or rising above the rest, a still yellow oak, and here and there amid the rest or in the foreground on the meadow, dull, ashy, salmon-colored white oaks, large and small, all these contrasting with the clear, liquid, sempiternal green of pines. ”

“ Nowhere in England rise such oak-woods, their boughs rimed with the frostwork of lichens, and dark beech-groves with their floor of red brown leaves, on which the branches weave their own warp and woof of light and shade. ”

“ It supports a great weight of thick limbs, irregular and crooked. Clear up to the knotted twigs, and tough brown leaves that often hang on all winter, the oak has a stubborn look. It dares the winter winds to do their worst. And it looks so old, so wise, such a scarred hero of a thousand fights. The old Norse sea kings and the brave English once worshiped the oak tree. It gave them ship timbers that could stand the strain of wind and waves. Many ancient peoples thought dryads, or wood spirits, lived in oak trees. ”

“ The red oak, the black oak, the scarlet oak, all splendid forest trees of the Northeast, are in the group of confusion that can be readily separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows every tree in the forest for its economic value, or by the botanist, with his limp-bound Gray's Manual in hand. ”

“ The sturdy oak, in fine weather, bends only its topmost branches to the light wind, and its leaves and twigs alone are troubled by the summer breeze; but when the gale lays low the trees of the forest and whirls the leaves about like ocean spray, then the oak is stirred to wild action; tosses its gnarled limbs in the air, and moves the very earth on which it stands. ”

“ In fact, a leaf is a layer of the precious cambium spread out on a framework of veins and covered [Pg 18] with a delicate, transparent skin—a sort of etherealized bark. What a vast quantity of leaf pulp is in the foliage of a large tree!
As summer wanes, and the upward tide of sap begins to fail, starch making in the leaf laboratories declines proportionately. Usually before midsummer the fresh green is dimmed. Dust and heat and insect injuries impair the leaf's capacity for work. The thrifty tree undertakes to withdraw the leaf pulp before winter comes. ”

“ Thus the male inflorescences are produced first—a common occurrence in forest trees.
Since the inflorescences arise from the axils of leaves, their arrangement accords with the phyllotaxis of the tree—i.e., 2⁄5—so far as it goes. It should be borne in mind that the bud-scales are stipules.
The male inflorescences hang down from between the bud-scales as simple catkin-like spikes, each bearing about a dozen flowers. Each male flower springs
Fig. 31.—A sprig of oak in May, with the pendent male catkin below, and the minute spikes of female flowers just showing above. (Th. Hartig.) ”

“ What cousin of mine is the shrub oak? Rigid as iron, clean as the atmosphere, hardy as virtue, innocent and sweet as a maiden, is the shrub oak. In proportion as I know and love it, I am natural and sound as a partridge. I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak. Tenacious of its leaves which shrivel not, but retain a certain wintry life in them, firm shields painted in fast colors, a rich brown. The deer-mouse, too, knows the shrub oak, and has its hole in the snow by the shrub oak's stem. ”

“ This hardy tree occupies fully as wide a range, both of soil and climate, as the oak, and is generally the fastest growing, most vigorous of all our hard-wood kinds, prospering on all soils, on the dry and moist, the aluminous, the calcareous, the siliceous, provided water does not stagnate. ”

“ In the earth are found trees of almost every kind, as willows, oaks, firs, aspins, beach, yew, ash, hawthorn, &c. In the fens of Lincoln, along the river Ouse, and in Hatfield-Chace, in the county of York, these trees are as straight as we see them in a forest. The oaks are very hard and used in buildings; they are said to last a long time, but which I must doubt, as all trees that are dug out of the earth, at least all those which I have seen, whether oak or others, lose, in drying, all the solidity, which they appeared to have at first. ”