Lokasenna
Posts: 9297
Joined: 3/3/2012 From: Iowan in MD/DC Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel Loka is a bit off in two respects. Pin oak is a red oak. And, strictly speaking, it's not specific to say one has a "red oak" in his yard. There isn't a species called "red oak." Oaks are divided into two major categories: white oaks and red oaks. Of the red oaks, there must be 25-30 species in the United States, perhaps a dozen or more growing in the eastern USA. The red oaks include southern, northern, scarlet, black, water, willow, laurel, live, Mitchell, pin, blackjack, cherrybark, turkey, shumard, chinquapin oak and chestnut oak species. The white oak group includes white oak, post oak, swamp white oak, burr, overcup and several others. Lumbermen do refer to oaks by their major groups. IE, they really don't distinguish between most of the red oaks. For them, the lumber is the same whether from black oak or southern red oak or scarlet oak. To them the wood/lumber is either "red oak" or "white oak." That's taking it way beyond what anybody might care about, but the precision of botany is interesting (but only to those who love botany, I suppose). Sorry, to be specific they're a northern red oak . As a gleefully obnoxious pedant at times, I should've expected that, I guess. I was chopping off the front end, because the others aren't actually titled "red oak" so much as classified as being part of that kind of oaks. I'd have said "willow oak" if I meant willow oak from the red oak group, for example... I do have one of those as well. I grew up with white oak and see a few out here. I prefer white oak acorns and the pointy nature of the red oak's leaves. I do wish I had a recently dead white oak so I could get some nice free hardwood, though. I'm kind of sick of silver maple and I can't do anything with it except burn it - it's too soft.
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