White Oak
Scientific name: Quercus alba
This stately tree can grow up to a 100 feet tall and live to 400 years. The oak is one of the most commonly found trees locally and there are several different species which you might come upon. Read below to learn how to distinguish between them! As the leaf to the right shows, there are 7 to 9 deeply cut lobes with rounded, not bristled tips. Plant an oak in your yard! These trees are valuable for birds, wildlife and even insects! As our planet gets warmer, the oak tree will do well here as they are trees of the south and are used to the higher temperatures we will be experiencing here due to climate change.
Fruit
Acorns ripen in the fall of their first year.
Flowers
Male flowers are the catkins, long drooping flowers about 3″ long. Female flowers are small and inconspicuous, but once fertilized become the acorn. Both male and female flowers are present on the same tree. You can see photos of both below.
Similar Species
Oaks are the largest group of forest trees found in New York State. Of the 300 in the world, 55 are native to the US. The easiest way to categorize these is by putting them into two groups.
The white oaks have 1) smooth and not bristle tip lobes 2) Sweet tasting acorns 3) acorns that ripen in one year. The white oak, swamp white oak and chestnut oak fall into this category.
By contrast black oaks have 1) bristle tipped lobes. 2) bitter acorns 3) acorns that take two seasons to ripen. So if you see an acorn on an oak tree in winter, you know that it falls in this category! The black oak, pin oak, scarlet oak and red oak are in this category.
All of these oaks can be found here in Lewisboro.
Habitat
The Oak-Hickory forest is the most common habitat in Lewisboro, covering about 25% of the town. You can see this habitat at Leon Levy Preserve or Mount Holly Sanctuary.
Bark
Grey, with ridges on the lower part of the tree. The bark on the upper part of the tree is more in the form of plates. One way to tell a red oak from a white oak is to look at the color of the wood between the segments of the bark. White oak is a grey to ashy white. Can you guess what color wood the red oak has?
Fruit
Acorns ripen in the fall of their first year.
Flowers
Male flowers are the catkins, long drooping flowers about 3″ long. Female flowers are small and inconspicuous, but once fertilized become the acorn. Both male and female flowers are present on the same tree. You can see photos of both below.
Ecosystem Connections
The acorns are an important source of food in the fall for many different types of birds and animals. And it provides valuable shelter for them as well.
Human Connections
White Oak is a very valuable wood which has many different applications, from flooring to veneer, cabinetry and more. The vessels of the wood are closed (unlike those of the red oak species) and so they can be made into barrels to age beverages, from wine to whiskey!
Native Americans ground the acorns into flour and made bread from them. The bark was used for various medicinal purposes.
Fall Foliage
White Oak Female Flower
White Oak Bark
The Majestic White Oak
More on Trees and Shrubs in Lewisboro
Lewisboro was once entirely forested except for patches of open field caused by fire and wetlands and ponds which were expanded by beaver dams. Although it is hard to believe, by 1800 most of Lewisboro’s forests had been cut down and replaced by farms. In 1820 so many trees had been cleared that there was no shade anywhere along the route from Boston to New York.[1] But by the mid-1800’s farming here became uneconomical and as farms were abandoned, the forests began to re-grow. Today, 70% of New York is once again forest, what some call ‘the great environmental story of the United States’[2]. These new forests provide us with beauty and recreation, clean air and water, flood control, erosion prevention, carbon sequestration, cooler temperatures and habitat for other plants, insects, birds and other wildlife.
[1] Cronon, William. Changes in the Land. Macmillan, 1983.
[2] An Explosion of Green. B. Mckibben. Atlantic Monthly 275 (April 1995): 61-83.