Indiana Native Plant S
SCARLET OAK
Some of us are familiar with the Pin Oak (Quercus palustris Muenchhausen not Regel ex A. De Candolle). However, there is another oak species that closely resembles this oak species. That species is the Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea Muenchhausen not Sargent).
Scarlet Oak is a member of the Order Fagales, the Family Fagaceae, and the Section Erythrobalanus or Lobatae.
The generic name, Quercus, is Latin for “oak tree”, “beautiful tree”, or “fine tree”. Quer is Celtic for “fine” or “beautiful” and cuex or cuez is Celtic for “tree”. The specific epithet, coccinea, is Latin for “scarlet”. The common name, oak, is from the Old English word, ac.
A pervious scientific synonym for this trees was Quercus acuta Rafinesque not Thunberg. Other common names for this species are Black Oak, Red Oak, and Spanish Oak.
Scarlet Oak is a shade intolerant tree. It resists salt and droughts but not floods. It is fast-growing and is moderately long-lived.
DESCRIPTION OF THE SCARLET OAK
Height: Its height is 40-80 feet.
Diameter: Its trunk diameter is 1-3 feet.
Crown: Its crown is open and rounded or pyramidal in open areas and is narrow and irregular in forests. Its branches are long, slender, and spreading.
Trunk: Its trunk is tall and straight. Many dead branches persist upon the lower trunk.
Twigs: Its twigs are slender; smooth; and are light red-brown, reddish, or purplish. Younger twigs are green. Its leaf scars are alternate, slightly raised, and are often crowded near the tip. Its pith is star-shaped in cross-section.
Buds: Its buds are clustered near the twig’s tip. Each bud is about ¼ inches long, ovate, blunt tipped, tapering, and red-brown. Its cross-sections are 5-angled. The scales’ upper half has fine pale gray hairs.
Leaves: Its leaves are simple, alternate, and deciduous. Each leaf is about 3-8 inches long, about 2-5 inches wide, and is elliptical. Its sinuses are deeply divided and rounded and its 5-9 lobes have many bristle-tipped leaves. These leaves are shiny green above and are pale yellow green below with hairy tufts at the axils of their veins. Its 1½-2½ inch petioles are smooth and slender.
These leaves are scarlet red in the fall and in the early spring. They contain the pigment anthocyanin. These leaves hang on until they turn brown and fall.
Flowers: Its flowers are monoecious. The male (staminate) flowers are arranged in smooth, slender, hanging 2¾-4 inch long catkin clusters. Each male flower has a 4-5 lobed, reddish, pubescent calyx; no corolla; and 4 stamens with yellow anthers. The female (pistillate) flowers are about ½ inches long and are clustered in groups of 1-4 upon small spikes near the leaf base. Each female flower has bright red, pubescent, long, and spreading stigmas. These flowers are wind-pollinated.
Fruit: Its fruit is an acorn. The acorn is borne solitarily or in pairs and is sessile or upon a short stalk. Each acorn is about ½-1 inch long, about ¾ inches wide, and is ovate. The nut is light red-brown and has 2-4 finely pitted concentric rings near its tip. The nutshell’s inside is hairy. Its bowl-shaped cup covers about 1/3-1/2 of the nut. The cup has tightly appressed, red-brown or orange scales. The acorn matures in 2 years. This tree produces a bumper crop about every 3-5 years.
These acorns are eaten by Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata L.), Woodpeckers (Family Picidae), Wild Turkeys (Meleagris gallopvao L.), Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus L.), Northern Bobwhite Quail (Colinus virginianus L.), Mice (Genus Mus), Squirrels (Family Sciuridae), Raccoons (Procyon lotor L.), and White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann).
Bark: Its young bark is gray-brown, smooth, and is thin with narrow vertical cracks. Its older bark is dark gray brown to nearly black, rough, and thick. The bark becomes finely grooved and shallowly furrowed into irregular scaly ridges and plates. Its inner bark is pink, red, or orange, and is not bitter. This bark is thin and is susceptible to fires.
Wood: Its wood is hard, heavy, strong, coarse-grained and ring-porous. Its heartwood is light red-brown and its sapwood is thicker and darker brown. Its sap has a pungent odor.
Roots: Its root system consists of a deep, coarse taproot.
Habitat: Its habitats consist of dry and sandy or rocky soils of ridgetops or of slopes. They tolerate acidic soils but not neutral or alkaline soils.
Range: Its range covers Appalachia and many adjacent areas. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi River except Florida. It is also found in Missouri and in Arkansas.
Uses of the Scarlet Oak:
The wood of the Scarlet Oak has few uses. Because this wood has many knots, it is not a favored commercial tree. It is used for general construction, farm implements, boats, wagons, slack cooperage, veneer, flooring, paneling, fence posts, boxes, crates, pallets, furniture, mine timbers, railroad crossties, pulpwood, and fuel.
This tree is used as a shade tree and as an ornamental, but does not transplant easily. It was first cultivated in 1691. It is cultivated in the U.S. and in Europe.
These acorns, which contain a high amount of tannin, are too bitter for human consumption without proper treatment. The oak leaf galls contain a sweet juice which Native Americans consumed.
Threats to the Scarlet Oak:
Scarlet Oaks have a few threats in the form of Insects (Class Insecta) and diseases. Some of them include Oak Wilt (Ceratocystis fagacearum [Bretz] Hunt), Forest Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma disstria Hubner), Two-lined Chestnut Borer (Agrilus bilineatus [Weber]), and Gypsy Moth (Lymantris dispar dispar L.).
REFERENCES
MICHIGAN TREES
By Burton V. Barnes and Warren H. Wagner, Jr.
FALL COLOR AND WOODLAND HARVESTS
By C. Ritchie Bell and Anne H. Lindsey
TREES OF PENNSYLVANIA AND THE NORTHEAST
By Charles Fergus and Amelia Hanson
TREES OF MISSOURI
By Don Kurz
TREES OF THE CENTRAL HARDWOOD FORESTS OF NORTH AMERICA
By Donald Leopold, William C. McComb, and Robert N. Muller
EDIBLE WILD PLANTS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
By Merritt Lyndon Fernald and Alfred Charles Kinsey
FOREST TREES OF ILLINOIS
By Jay C. Hayek, Editor
101 TREES OF INDIANA
By Marion T. Jackson
OUR NATIVE TREES
By Harriet L. Keeler
TREES OF ILLINOIS
By Linda Kershaw
NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION FIELD GUIDE TO TREES OF NORTH AMERICA
By Bruce Kershner, Daniel Mathews, Gil Nelson, and Richard Spellenberg
AUTUMN LEAVES
By Ronald M. Lanner
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY FIELD GUIDE TO NORTH AMERICAN TREES (EASTERN REGION)
By Elbert L. Little
HOW TO KNOW THE TREES
By Howard A. Miller and H.E. Jaques
TREES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA
By Gil Nelson, Christopher J. Earle, and Richard Spellenberg
EASTERN TREES
By George A. Petrides
THE URBAN TREE BOOK
By Arthur Plotnik.
NORTH AMERICAN TREES
By Richard J. Preston, Jr.
THE SIBLEY GUIDE TO TREES
By David Allen Sibley
OUR TREES
By T. Davis Sydnor and William F. Cowen
TREES
By Laurence Walker
NATIVE TREES OF THE MIDWEST
By Sally S. Weeks, Harmon P. Weeks, Jr., and George R. Parker
IDENTIFYING TREES
By Michael D. Williams
BARK: A FIELD GUIDE TO TREES OF THE NORTHEAST
By Michael Wojtech
en.wiki/Quercus_coccinea
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