The Perfect Tree
There are few things in this ole world as lovely and strong as a beautiful Oak tree, and for a year now I have been eyeing the perfect Oak just up the road from my office. Now with the leaves almost gone, it’s shapeliness is clearer than ever before. It is about as perfect as an Oak can get.
If you’re driving north on Elm Street out of town, cross through the lights at Bessemer, and it’s in the front yard of the third house/apt. on the right. There is no address. If it weren’t for the hanger on leaves on the big Willow Oak on the corner of Elm and Bessemer, I could see our tree from where I now sit typing.
It’s not a terribly big or old tree. It’s crown is a little wider than the tree is tall. The first limbs grow out almost horizontally. Were someone to show me the silhouette without the leaves or acorns I might be tempted to say that it’s a Post Oak, or maybe even a young White Oak, but it is definitely not either. Rather, it comes from the other side of the Oak family, the Red Oaks, or as some say, the “Black” Oaks.
The Oaks are divided into two main groups, the “White” Oaks and the “Red” Oaks. The Red Oaks have little bristles at the tips of their leaves, the lobes of which themselves are usually more pointed. And if you look inside the broken acorn of a Red Oak, the inside of the acorn shell is hairy in appearance. Red Oak acorns usually take two years to mature, and so there are often two different sizes of acorns on the twigs and stems. In addition, Red Oak trunks are usually darker in color than the white Oaks.
White Oaks have leaves that are less pointy and do not have bristles on the end of the lobes. The inside of their acorn shells is smooth. Their acorns mature in one year and so all of the acorns are of similar size. The trunks of white Oak trees are generally lighter in color.
Well, that’s enough about the difference between the two families of Oak for now.
Suffice it to say that our perfect specimen is definitely from the “Red” side of the family. The leaves are quite pointy with bristles at the end.
But I am not 100% sure what sort of Red Oak this is. If I had to say, based on the leaf, acorn, and bark, I would say that it is a Northern Red Oak, but it could be a Black Oak. Then again (and this is always such a great excuse), Oaks do hybridize, and it could be something in between a Northern Red and a Black Oak.
It doesn’t matter really. Because if you drive up and down Elm Street, you have all winter to admire this tree. When things aren’t going right, when life is getting squirrelly, sometimes admiring a stately Oak tree, even if just for a few seconds, is just what the doctor ordered.
And this Oak tree on North Elm is about as close to perfect as a tree gets. |
