Oak tree

“ 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. ”

“ On this side by the hedge the ground is a little higher and dry, hung over with the lengthy boughs of an oak which give some shade. I always feel a sense of regret when I see a seedling oak in the grass. The two green leaves—the little stem so upright and confident, and though but a few inches high, already so completely a tree—are in themselves beautiful. Power, endurance, grandeur are there; you can grasp all with your hand and take a ship between the finger and thumb. ”

“ Year after year the oak-tree bore its acorns, hundreds and hundreds of them, and they fell on the grass beneath and rolled down the smooth slopes, and sprouted as best they could,—most of them uselessly so far as producing trees were concerned,—but each one did its duty and furnished its green sprout, and died if it found no nourishment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I see one standing on a bough of an oak-tree, right in the tree, an enormous white tree-creature complacently munching up aloft, then rearing on her hind legs, so lengthy, and putting her slim paws far away on an upper, forward branch. ”

“ Noble trees they are that fill the hollow. Some have long since passed their prime. Their mighty branches are thick with moss and lichen, and fringed with green tongues of fern. In rifts that time and storm have carved in their huge columns, rowan and bramble and young holly trees are rooted. Grey arms of ivy, almost as broad and vigorous as they, are twined with fatal clasp about their sturdy stems. Where the pathway crosses at the ford, there stands a blasted tree: a giant oak, whose top, wrecked and shattered though it is, rises high above its forest brothers. ”

“ You can't expect to get anything out of an oak-tree without working for it. I have seen an oak-log softened to punk, the bark gone, having lain in a woodland shadow, doubtless for thirty or forty years, but still holding fast to its unmistakable grain and formation, though you could rub it to powder between the fingers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A great oak stands at the meadow’s neck, an oak with gnarled and wandering roots where a man may rest, for it is bare of daffodils save for a group of three, and a solitary one apart growing close to the old tree’s side. I sat down by my lonely little sister, blue sky overhead, green grass at my feet decked, like the pastures of the Blessèd, in glorious sheen ”

“ If you stand under an oak-tree during a summer shower—a mode of passive scientific observation for which nature has afforded quite ample opportunities during the last few weeks—you will notice at once that the round mass of its foliage acts exactly like a huge umbrella, and conducts all the rain that falls upon its surface outward and downward towards the circumference of the circle. The drops that alight upon the central and tallest part of the tree are shed by the veined and channelled leaves till they fall off the tips on to the layer immediately below and outside 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. ”

“ The fifty kinds of oak trees that are native to America are about evenly divided on the two sides of the Rocky Mountains. No Western [34] oaks are found in the Eastern states, and none of our Eastern kinds grows wild on the other side of the mountains. The backbone of the continent is a bar that neither group has been able to pass.
To know fifty different kinds of oaks by sight, so as to call each one by its right name, is not an easy task; and yet it is not so difficult as it at first might seem. To begin with, any tree we meet, which bears acorns, we at once recognise as an oak. ”

“ The live-oak is almost the only tree away from the river bottoms, and everywhere gives the marked features to the landscape.
The live-oaks are often short, and even stunted in growth, lacking the rich vigor and full foliage of those further east. Occasionally, a tree is met with, which has escaped its share of injury from prairie burnings and northers, and has grown into a symmetrical and glorious beauty. ”

“ 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 is a broad, sturdy tree, and it grows very slowly, so slowly that after it is grown up it rarely increases more than an inch in a year, and sometimes not even that. But just because the Oak tree lives so leisurely, it outlasts all its companions in the forest except, perhaps, the yew tree, and its beautiful hard, close-grained wood is the most prized of all our timber. ”

“ They show no cunning in choosing their oak-tree, for they will roost night after night on some low branch overhanging a road. They seem naturally to prefer oaks to beeches for a lodging. Unlike most trees, oaks throw out their branches horizontally, but beeches' branches tend to rise vertically. ”

“ 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 ideal of the mountain oak may be anything, twisting, and leaning, and shattered, and rock-encumbered, so only that amidst all its misfortunes, it maintain the dignity of oak; and, indeed, I look upon this kind of tree as more ideal than the other, in so far as by its efforts and struggles, more of its nature, enduring power, patience in waiting for, and ingenuity in obtaining what it wants, is brought out, and so more of the essence of oak exhibited, than under more fortunate conditions. ”

“ Of all the hues of autumn, those of the oak are commonly the most harmonious. In an oaken wood, you see every variety of green and brown, owing either to the different exposure of the tree, the difference of the soil, or its own nature. In the beechen grove, this variety is not to be found. In early autumn, when the extremities of the trees are slightly tinged with orange, it may be partially produced; but late the eye is usually fatigued with one deep monotonous shade of orange, though perhaps it is the most beautiful among all the hues of autumn. ”

“ When a young oak tree has its branches lopped off, and provided that loppings take place at intervals of a few years, the wood that comes from the mature tree will show clusters of knots—gnarled and twisted grain, with intervening spaces of plainer grain—in which condition it is known as pollard oak. ”

“ You may have noticed the trunk and branches of the oak are often gnarled and knotted, and this helps to give the tree its appearance of great strength. It is just as strong as it looks, and for building-purposes it lasts longer than any other wood. Beams and rafters of oak are found in old English houses, showing among the brick-work, and many of these half-timbered houses, as they are called, were built hundreds of years ago. ”

“ He grows up before you like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May the oak and the sapling flourish a long time together. And when the mighty oak is fallen to the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the tribe like the parent trunk. ”

“ The other species is the mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quercus chrysolepis) , a sturdy mountaineer of a tree, growing mostly on the earthquake taluses and benches of the sunny north wall of the Valley. In tough, unwedgeable, knotty strength, it is the oak of oaks, a magnificent tree. ”

“ It must arise. “A new and glorious life,” the mother oak had said.
“I must arise,” the acorn said, and up the living plant came, up to the world of sunshine and beauty. It looked around. There was the same green moss in the woods, the same singing brook.
“And I shall live and grow,” it said.
“Yes,” called the mother oak, “you are now an oak tree. This is your real life.”
And the tiny oak tree was glad and tried to stretch higher towards the sun.
[104]
THE STORY OF TWO LITTLE SEEDS George MacDonald
Long, long ago, two seeds lay beside each other in the earth, waiting. ”

“ There are many difficulties, however, in cultivating pure oak woods, and the custom of mixing other trees is a common one, for the young oaks need much light; and yet, if each plant has the space given it necessary to allow of this light, it grows into a short and spreading tree instead of rising up into a tall, straight one. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The tree is not graceful nor symmetrical, but there is a picturesqueness and strength about it that redeems its coarseness and irregularity. This species would be planted oftener for shade, were there not so many beautiful oaks to choose from. In the wild, however, a giant black oak is a noble feature of the landscape. ”

“ British oak, therefore, though it is under temporary commercial eclipse, can never fail of producing timber of the very highest quality, and, owing to its long span of vigorous life, the tree may be left standing in the forest for centuries without deteriorating. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among trees the one that attains great proportions and beautiful symmetry is yonder giant oak or elm that grows in the open. It needs room to breathe and grow. It grows better if it is segregated from the crowded forest. The giant tree is not the one that grows in the dense forest. ”

“ The bark on young stems is smooth, shining and light brown; on old trunks light gray-brown and covered by small, close scales. Because of its beauty, its hardiness, and its fairly rapid growth, pin oak makes an exceptionally fine street tree. ”

“ But Malcolm repeated:
"Amentaceous--ament. I know, Miss Harson: it's catkins"
"Yes, it means trees which produce their flowers in catkins, or looking as if strung on long drooping stems; and the oak is the monarch of this family, and in Great Britain of all the forest-trees. It is especially an English tree, although our woods contain several varieties. But they do not hold the pre-eminence in our forests that the oaks do in those of England. The oak ordinarily runs more to breadth than to height, and spreads itself out to a vast distance with an air of strength and grandeur. ”