This tree looks rather oak-like, but I can't place it. The leaves are almost Catalpa-sized. Very large. I can find no acorns beneath it. Foliage appears to be spare, but most leaves have suffered damage from some kind of insect so they may simplhy have been consumed.
Scott
Here is the bark.
Scott
From ehat we can see it looks like an oddball Quercus montana, does that sound right? I suspect the oversized leaves are due to regrowth following damage. It probably had no acorns last year just to mess with your head!
Guy S.
I'd tally a second vote for Q. montana, chestnut oak. Those big broad ridges are a giveaway with those rounded shallow lobed leaves.
If it had acorns, they'd have been big too. And copious, on the trees I get to hang around.
Looks just like the leaves on my Quercus Michauxii, but i'm not sure they grow that far north.
Q. michauxii does grow all the way up into southern Illinois and can be cultivated even up in the Chicago area, but the bark is wrong for that.
Guy S.
Mine is small, so it don't have any mature bark. Looking at pictures though, it does look more shaggy .
Escambia, someday your little tree will be huge -- immense -- with bright gray scaly bark that sets off the brilliant red fall color. One of the largest and most attractive of all oaks. Just give it a couple of centuries to mature, then invite me down there to photograph it.
Guy S.
It has actually grown faster than I had expected, even after a deer attack. It started out as a 2ft stick two years ago and now it is about 6ft tall. I have sooo many water oaks around I figured it would be something different.
What fantastic news on the Quercus micheauxii. I just got one today via an order from Mail Order Natives. I didn't know what to expect with that oak; I just got it because I kind of like other stuff Micheaux discovered. From MON, I also got Stewartia malocodendron. Any advice on that one? The two southern sugar maples I've been seeking, Acer barbatum and Acer leucoderme. A pond cypress. Q. prinus, and one or two other things I can't remember off hand.
Scott
That is where I got my Q. michauxii from. I don't know much about Stewartia.
Scott, you've got to let on when you are after some of these things. There are some fabulous seed-producing machines in the Quercus category around here in the parks.
I'll hunt up the pictures I took this past fall of a real nice specimen in Black Mudd Park.
Here's one of our Newports. We planted it not quite 5 yrs ago. It's about 4.5' high, and has had nothing done except fertilization, primarily with SoilSoup.
The sun is setting, so it's a bit dark. I'll try to get a better one tomorrow.
OK, billr got lost looking for the Viburnum Newport thread. Turn around, go back about two threads, and make a right. You're excused: as you said, it's a bit dark and you probably missed the turn.
Back to the oaks! I can't find my digipics of the Quercus michauxii (it's really nice, I swear it is) here at home. I'll check my work PC collection, and take some new pics if I can't find them there.
I just spent the morning touring an adult education class around Iroquois Park in Louisville; walked under some fabulous specimens of Quercus montana (of course, sans camera). More pics to get and store...
Where can I sign up for a tour?
Scott
Viburnum Valley Ventures
Need a break from the hum-a-drum everyday wear and tear of life? Come to the City of Parks, situated on the only natural obstacle to navigation along the 981 mile length of the Ohio River, the Falls City...Louisville KY.
Relax, have a mint julep (if it's the first Saturday in May), and enjoy a pleasant journey through time to the late 1890s. Imagine the bustling young city, bridling with the market enthusiasm of the Industrial Age, getting itself established in the realm of the big boys of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago.
Recognizing the balance in living, working, and playing, the city's administration brought the premier advocate and designer of parks, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. to town to lay out a system of parks and parkways to lead the community toward creating places of relaxation and restoration, respites from the noise and clutter of the urban center, that represented that which was best and unique in the local landscape.
Cherokee Park: the picturesque pastoral landscape of the Beargrass Creek valley, with its rolling uplands, meadows, limestone bluffs, and meandering stream corridor.
Shawnee Park: the broad expanse of the Ohio River floodplain offering sweeping views out to and across the river, ample spaces for grand community events, and generous promenades for seeing and being seen.
Iroquois Park: the wild and scenic reservation, "Louisville's Yellowstone", a retreat from the city into a deep mysterious forest clothing a steep rugged hill from which were offered spectacular vistas.
These three unique examples of the local landscape were knitted together and to the growing community by a 15 mile system of tree-lined parkways (ways to the park) outfitted for pedestrians, cyclists, horseback riders, or carriages.
Today, 115 years or so after the idea germinated, Louisville's residents and visitors are the beneficiaries of the wisdom and forethought of that time. Not only is the land and its spaces reserved for enjoyment now, but the establishment and growth of the living landscape (that which cannot be instantly replicated) has revealed the design intent of those who wouldn't be present to walk in the varying sun and shadow of the magnificent arboreal specimens set out as so many small seedlings then.
Come, see, remember.
You must write their travel brochures too!
Guy S.
Well, I sure get to spend a lot of time being paid to hang around here. Might as well make myself useful.
Here's a series of swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii) pictures from Louisville.
First, from back in December 2005...
And a nice looking late spring shot from Tuesday...
Arraigning the suspect...here's a profile shot.
Foliage.
Very nice bark.
And, finally the upshot of it all.
We have some nice ones in southern Illinois too --
Guy S.
Great shots, VV, thanks. Q. micheauxii looks quite similar to Q. bicolor, it would seem.
Scott
Spell check, Scott (since RonB is not monitoring here): Quercus michauxii is correct.
Similar in gross respects. The Almighty Guy Superior will correct me, but I'd say that:
Quercus michauxii has more slender twigs, and are greenish and have hairiness.
Quercus bicolor will have clubbier twigs, no noticeable coloration beyond brownish, not hairy (that I remember).
Quercus bicolor also has noticeably exfoliating bark on branches a couple years old; I don't recall that being a feature of Quercus michauxii.
The leaves are somewhat similar. I'd say Quercus bicolor is generally darker green and glossier, with fatter lobing on the leaf edges.
