THE RED OAK.
Q. rubra, Linn.
The red oak grows rapidly, like the pin oak, and is a great favorite in parks overseas, where it takes on the rich autumnal red shades that give it its name at home. Such color is unknown in native woods in England.
The head of this oak is usually narrow and rounded; the branches, short and stout, are inclined to go thcft own way, giving the tree more of picturesqueness than of symmetry, as age advances. Sometimes the dome is broad and rounded like that of a white oak, and in the woods, where competition is keen, the trunk may reach one hundred and fifty feet in height.
The red oak leaf is large, smooth, rather thin, its oval broken by triangular sinuses and forward-aiming lobes, that end in bristly points. The blade is broadest between
the apex and the middle, where the two largest lobes are. No oak has leaves more variable than this.
Under the dark brown, close-knit bark of a full-grown red oak tree is a reddish layer that shows in the furrows. The twigs and leaf-stems are red. A flush of pink covers the opening leaves, and they are lined with white down which is soon shed.
The bloom is very abundant and conspicuous, the fringe like pollen-bearing aments four or five inches long, droop ing from the twigs in clusters, when the leaves are half grown in May.
The acorns of the red oak are large, and set in shallow saucers, with incurving rims. Few creatures taste their bitter white kernels.