Part 24
The annual rings are often indistinct. The wood is hard, heavy, and strong, and checks badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are broad and conspicuous, the wood dark brown in color, the sapwood lighter. This oak is very high in ash contents, more than one per cent of the dry weight of wood going to ashes when burned. The tree reaches its best development in the lower Mississippi valley, and in eastern Texas. Comparatively few uses for it have been found. Cordwood cutters find it valuable where it abounds in sufficient quantity, and it has been burned for charcoal for iron foundries and blacksmith shops. Small amounts are occasionally found in wood-using factories in Texas, but only when logs with considerable heartwood can be procured. The sap is characterless and seems to be utterly rejected at the factory. Sometimes the rich brown of the heartwood is attractive, but more frequently the wood is ringed and splotched with different colors, not distributed in a way to give any artistic effect. When a satisfactory stick is found, it can be worked into balusters and small spindles which show grain well. It is also worked into broad panels made up of narrow, quarter-sawed strips, which exhibit the dark flecks of the wood to good advantage.
TRIDENT OAK (_Quercus tridentata_) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri--a single tree--which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made.
LEA OAK (_Quercus leana_), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_) and shingle oak (_Quercus imbricaria_), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly known.
[Illustration]
LAUREL OAK
[Illustration: LAUREL OAK]
LAUREL OAK
(_Quercus Laurifolia_)
This representative of the black oak group is found nowhere except in the southeastern states, and only in their borders. It never ranges far inland, but sticks to wet localities and the margins of swamps where its associates are tupelo, southern white cedar, cypress, magnolias, and, near its southern limit, myrtle and other semi-tropical trees and shrubs. It is sometimes utilized as an ornament, but that is not its usual function. It is not a successful competitor as a shade tree with willow oak and water oak.
Beginning at the border of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia as the northern limit of growth, this interesting tree ranges southward along the coast to Cape Romano in Florida and westward in the lower Gulf states to southeastern Louisiana. It is seen at its best in eastern Florida. It puts forth a vigorous growth on the hummock land in the southern part of that state, where it develops a shapely trunk when in crowded stands. It grows well in very rocky ground.
Although the common name laurel oak is prompted by its foliage, the tree bears various other sectional names. It is known as laurel oak in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida; Darlington oak in South Carolina; willow oak in Florida and South Carolina; water oak in Georgia. The latter name has a tendency to confuse it with another species which is properly called water oak (_Quercus nigra_).
The ornamental qualities of this tree are due to the tall stately bole, its shapely and symmetrical round-topped head and slender branches and twigs. It sometimes attains the dignity of one hundred feet in height with a proportionate diameter of three or four feet. The bark is firm, of dark, reddish-brown color, and usually is not fissured but finely broken into small close, scale-like plates. On old trees, especially at the butt, deep fissures divide it into broad ridges. The buds are shiny brown, and they narrow abruptly to an acute point. The acorns are either sessile or have short stalks, and they usually grow alone. They are short and broad, and are incased in shallow, thin cups. In the flowering season hairy aments add to the attractiveness of the tree. The leaves are dark green above and lighter on the lower surface and are grouped rather closely on the twigs. They attain a length of four inches or less, and fall gradually after turning yellow.
Laurel oak seems to be little used. It is occasionally referred to as rather inferior to other members of the black oak group, but it is not apparent why it bears that reputation. It may be on account of its poor seasoning qualities. Like other southern oaks, it is very heavy when green, and it is inclined to shrink and warp while in the process of
## parting with its moisture. If this can be successfully overcome, the
wood ought to be valuable. Tests made on four samples cut on St. John’s river, Florida, recorded in Sargent’s tables, show remarkable results. The wood is 34 per cent stronger and 37 per cent stiffer than white oak, and is only one pound heavier per cubic foot of dry wood. If these values are fairly representative of the wood of laurel oak, it should be exceptionally valuable in vehicle making. It would fall considerably below hickory, but would stand very high among other woods, and could be recommended for wagon axles, tongues, and other parts of heavy vehicles.
It should be borne in mind, however, that tests alone, and particularly when the number of samples is small, are not sufficient to decide a wood’s place as a manufacturing material. It must be tried in actual practice, and that has not yet been done in the case of laurel oak as a wagon wood. When tried out it may exhibit defects, or undesirable qualities, which are not apparent in samples employed in laboratory tests.
There is little exact information available in regard to the supply of laurel oak in the South. It is not abundant in the sense that willow oak and Texan red oak are. Neither are the trees generally of good form for lumber. Little has ever been cut, because the land where it grows is not demanded for agriculture. It occupies out-of-the-way places, and the hunter and fisherman are better acquainted with it than the lumberman.
HIGHLAND OAK (_Quercus wislizeni_) is a California evergreen with leaves commonly shaped like holly, but sometimes their edges are smooth with no sign of teeth. The foliage remains longer on this tree than is usual with evergreen oaks. Old leaves generally fall within a month after the new crop appears; but those of highland oak remain several months longer, gradually falling during the second summer. When the tree is at its best it is a splendid representative of the vegetable kingdom. Its form does not please lumbermen, for the trunk is short and rough; but the crown rises seventy or eighty feet, is symmetrical, the foliage dark green, and the general appearance is that of an enormous holly tree. Trunks are sometimes five or six feet in diameter. The name highland oak is somewhat misleading, though the species ascends to an altitude of 6,000 feet or more. It is described as a highland tree to distinguish it from the California live oak (_Quercus agrifolia_) which grows in the vicinity of the sea in California. The highland oak ranges from northern California to the international boundary, following the foothills of the mountain ranges. It occurs in dry river bottoms and washes and in desert mountain canyons. It is not choice as to soil but will grow in loam, sand, gravel, or among rocks. It is not abundant.
When it grows near the sea it is apt to lose its tree form and become a shrub. It assumes that form on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands off the coast of southern California. It grows slowly and is tenacious of life. When it has once secured a foothold it hangs on with determination, though exposed to severe storms and inhospitable conditions. The acorns do not mature until late in the autumn of their second year. They are sometimes an inch and a half long, and scarcely a third of an inch thick. The wood of this oak possesses some good qualities which are locally appreciated by wagon makers who use it for repair work. It is extensively cut for fuel, and it burns about like eastern white oak, but leaves more ashes. The dry wood weighs 49 pounds per cubic foot. It is considerably weaker than white oak and is less elastic. The summerwood constitutes a large part of the annual growth ring. It is very porous, the rows of pores running parallel with the medullary rays. This part of the wood structure is midway between that of deciduous and the evergreen oaks. The medullary rays are broad but short. When exposed on a tangential surface, they are from one-fourth to one-half inch long, and give the wood a flecked appearance. Exposed in cross section, they are from one inch to four inches in length. This applies, of course, only to large rays, easily seen with the naked eye. In quarter-sawed lumber, the rays have a pinkish color and glossy luster which are not pleasing. This tree belongs in the class with those which are in no danger of being extirpated by human agencies. It occupies land which man does not need and will never want.
MYRTLE OAK (_Quercus myrtifolia_) associates with the laurel oak in some parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and closely resembles it, though it is smaller, and gives little promise of ever becoming important in a commercial way. It is clearly in the scrub oak class, and does not approach the dignity of even a small tree in most of its range. Few specimens can be found exceeding a height of twenty feet and a diameter of five or six inches. Trees approaching that size grow in western Florida in the region of the Apalachicola river. Generally this oak covers dry, sandy ridges and islands, and is shrubby. It forms thickets on some of the islands off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, and extends its range westward to the low, southern parts of Louisiana where the dwarf trees are almost hidden by tall reeds and grass. Its name refers to the leaf it bears. It is impossible that man can ever make much use of this tree.
MOREHUS OAK (_Quercus morehus_) can never be important in the lumber industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground needs a cover. Its range is in the northern coast range and the Sierra foothills, extending as far south as Kings river. The edges of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage falls in late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The wood has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too scarce to be important. The most interesting thing connected with this tree is that it is supposed to be a hybrid--a cross between highland oak and California black oak. It was first found in 1863, and a considerable range has since been established for it.
It is the opinion of some investigators that new tree species have their origin in crosses between existing species. Of the countless thousands of such crosses a few, at long intervals of time, may develop characteristics which enable them to maintain their existence and to spread into new territory. If that occurs, a new kind of tree has appeared on earth and is ready to take its place among the established forests of the region. Cross-fertilization among trees and plants is very common, but so many adverse conditions are encountered, that few hybrids ever amount to anything.
[Illustration]
PIN OAK
[Illustration: PIN OAK]
PIN OAK
(_Quercus Palustris_)
Pin oak ranges from certain sections of Massachusetts, notably the Connecticut river valley, and near Amherst, westward as far as the southeastern part of Missouri; on the south it is found along the lower Potomac river in Virginia, in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.
It is known as pin oak in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas; in Arkansas and Kansas it is called swamp Spanish oak; in Rhode Island and Illinois it is often known as water oak; in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kansas as swamp oak; in Arkansas as water Spanish oak.
The name pin oak is said to belong to this tree because of a peculiarity of its branches. They leave the trunk and the larger limbs at nearly right angles, and criss-cross in all directions, resembling pins thrust into the wood, and bristling outward at every angle. The crowding to which they are subjected kills many of them as the tree reaches middle age, but the stubs do not drop quickly, and as many of the characteristic pins appear to be present as ever. Such is the usual explanation given to account for the name, and the facts fit the theory; but the fact that several other species are called pin oaks is not accounted for. The habit of the branches of all of them is not the same. The Gambel oak in its Arizona range has that name. So has the chinquapin oak in Arkansas and Texas, but that is apparently a shortening of its true name, the last syllable only being used. They call the Durand oak pin oak in Texas, but without any known reason.
The botanical name _palustris_, belonging to this species, refers to the tree’s habit of growing in swamps and damp land along river bottoms. It is not a swamp tree as cypress is, but is more like swamp white oak, and finds its most congenial surroundings on the borders of streams and on fairly well drained lowland where roots readily reach water.
The leaves are three or five inches long, are simple, and alternate. They are broad, and have from five to nine lobes which are toothed, and bristle-tipped on the ends. The sinuses are broad and rounded, and extend well toward the midrib, which is stout, and from which the veins branch off conspicuously. In color the leaves are bright green above and lighter below when young, becoming thin, firm and darker green at maturity; late in autumn they turn a rich, deep scarlet. They are coated below with pubescence, and have large tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the veins.
The fruit of pin oak is a small acorn which grows either sessile or on a very short stem; sometimes in clusters, and sometimes singly. In shape the acorns are nearly hemispherical, and measure about a half inch in diameter; they are enclosed only at the base, in a thin, saucer-shaped cup, dark brown, and scaly.
The bark of a mature tree is dark gray or brownish-green; it is rough, being full of small furrows, and frequently cracks open and shows the reddish inner layer of bark. On small branches and young trunks, it is smoother, lighter, and more lustrous.
Pin oak is smaller than red oak. Average trees are seventy or eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. Specimens 120 feet high and four feet in diameter are heard of but are seldom seen. Near the northern limit of pin oak’s range large trees are not found, nor are small trees plentiful. This holds true in all parts of New England and northern New York where the species is found growing naturally. South of Pennsylvania, along the flood plains of rivers which flow to Chesapeake bay, a better class of timber is found. The best development of the species is in the lower Ohio valley.
It grows rapidly, but falls a little short of the red oak. When young growth is cut, sprouts will rise from the stumps and flourish for a time, but merchantable trees are seldom or never produced that way. The acorn must be depended on. It has been remarked that pin oak does not prune itself well, but it does better in dense stands than in open ground. In the latter case the limbs are late in dying and falling.
Pin oak has proved to be a valuable street and park tree. It possesses several characteristics which recommend it for that use. It grows rapidly, and it quickly attains a size which lessens its liability to injury by accidents. Its shade is tolerably dense; the crown is shapely and attractive; the leaves fall late; and it seems to stand the smoke and dust of cities better than many other trees. It is easily and successfully transplanted if taken when small. Many towns and cities from Long Island to Washington, D. C., have planted the pin oak along streets, avenues, and in parks. Several thoroughfares in Washington are shaded by them.
Considerable planting of pin oak has been done by railroads which expect to grow ties. Trees of this species when cut in forests and made into crossties do not all show similar resistance to decay. Some ties are perishable in a short time, while others give satisfactory service. The best endure well without preservative treatment, but all are benefited by it. If the experimental plantings turn out well, it may be expected that pin oak will fill an important place in the crosstie business.
Because of numerous limbs, lumber cut from pin oak is apt to be knotty, and the percentage of good grades small. The annual rings are wide, and are about evenly divided between spring and summerwood, though the latter often exceeds the former. Its general appearance suggests red oak, but it is more porous in trunks of thrifty growth. The springwood is largely made up of pores. The medullary rays are hardly as prominent as those of red oak, but in other ways resemble them. The wood weighs 43.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is a little above red oak. It is hard and strong, dark brown with thin sapwood of darker color. The lumber checks and warps badly in seasoning.
The uses to which pin oak is put must be considered in a general way because of the absence of exact statistics. The wood is not listed by the lumber trade under its own name, but goes along with others of the black oak group. Its uses, however, are known along a number of lines. Lumbermen cut it wherever it is found mixed with other hardwoods. Sometimes vehicle manufacturers make a point of securing a supply of this wood. That occurs oftener with small concerns than large. It is made into felloes, reaches, and bolsters. Furniture makers use it, and well selected, quarter-sawed stock is occasionally reduced to veneer. The articles produced pass for red oak, and it would be very difficult to detect the difference between pin oak and true red oak when finished as veneer. Some highly attractive mission furniture is said to be of pin oak.
More goes to chair stock mills than to factories which produce higher classes of furniture. Chairs utilize very small pieces, and that gives the stock cutter a chance to trim out the knots and produce the maximum amount of clear stuff. Chair makers in Michigan reported the use of 60,000 feet of pin oak in 1910. Slack coopers work in much the same way as chair mills, and pin oak is acceptable material for many classes of barrels and other containers. Small tight knots are frequently not defects sufficient to cause the rejection of staves. Tight coopers do not find pin oak suitable, because the wood is too porous to hold liquids, particularly liquors containing alcohol. The wood is mixed at mills with red oak and other similar species and is manufactured into picture frames, boxes, crates, interior finish for houses, and many other commodities requiring strength or handsome finish. In early years when the people manufactured by hand what they needed, and obtained their timber from the nearest forest or woodlot, they split fence rails, pickets, clapboards, and shingles of pin oak.
Oak-apples or galls are the round excrescences formed on the limbs by gallflies and their eggs. They seem particularly fond of this species and specimens are often seen which are literally covered with them. The worms which live inside seem to flourish particularly well on the food they imbibe from pin oak. The primitive school teachers three or four generations ago turned these oak galls to account. They are rich in tannin, and were employed in manufacturing the local ink supply. The teachers were the ink makers as well as the pen cutters when the pens were whittled from quills. The process of making the ink was simple. The galls were soaked in a kettle of water and nails. The iron acted on the tannin and produced the desired blackness, but if special luster was desired, it was furnished by adding the fruit of the wild greenbrier (_Smilax rotundifolia_), which grew abundantly in the woods. It was well that steel pens were not then in use, for the schoolmaster’s oak ink would have eaten up such a pen in a single day.
[Illustration]
CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK
[Illustration: CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK]
CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK
(_Quercus Agrifolia_)
This fine western tree belongs to the black oak group, yet its acorns mature in one year, like those of white oaks. It is the only known black oak with that habit. It is properly classed with canyon live oak which has many characteristics of white oak, yet matures its acorns the second year. The two oaks with freakish fruit belong in California, and to some extent occupy the same range. California live oak is apparently making an effort to conform to the habit of other black oaks by producing two year acorns. It has not yet succeeded in doing so, but flowers occasionally appear in the fall, and young acorns set on the twigs. They drop during the winter, and it is not believed that any of them hang till the second season.
The range of this tree covers most of the California coast region but does not reach the great interior valleys. The tree is very common in the southwestern part of the state. It is called an evergreen, and some individuals deserve that reputation, but the leaves never remain long after the new crop appears. Frequently the old leaves do not wait for the new, and when they drop, the branches remain bare for a few weeks. The form of the leaf is not constant. Some have smooth margins, but the typical leaf is toothed like holly. One of the early names by which the tree was known was holly-leaved oak. The bark looks much like the bark of chestnut oak. It is bought for tanning purposes, but its principal use is to adulterate the bark of another oak (_Quercus densiflora_). Trees range in height from twenty-five to seventy-five feet, and from one foot to four in diameter. The trunks are very short, and seldom afford clear lengths exceeding eight feet, and often not more than four. Trees generally grow in the open, but when in thickets, the boles lengthen somewhat. They are of slow growth and live to old age.