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Oaks & Beeches

Oaks are part of the Beech family. In Canada oaks are divided into two groups. Red oaks have pinnate leaves with pointed tips; white oaks have pinnate leaves with rounded lobes or large regular teeth. Dead leaves, often clustered at the ends of the twigs, sometimes stay on the branches over the winter. The thick leaves take a long time to decompose.

While oaks are part of the same family, some oak trees look more like cousins than siblings. For example, the Scarlet Oak has glossy green leaves, with finger-like lobes that turn deep red in the autumn. The Swamp White Oak has leaves that have almost no lobes.

Mature Oak trees have rough-grooved bark, unlike the related Beech with its smooth bark.  The Oak’s fruits are acorns – one-seeded nuts - with a tough smooth shell, and a scaly cap.

The large oaks can live for centuries and make up a great proportion of the deciduous forest of North America.  Oak trees can be spreading or more upright,  and are considered symbols of strength and stability.

Oak is prized as hardwood and is used for furniture, flooring, barrels, and the tannin found in the bark was used for tanning leather.

There are four species of oak on The Jean Melrose Bevan Memorial Heritage Tree Walk and one beech, the American Beech. 

Regal Prince Oak
(Quercus x warei Long® ‘Regal Prince’)

This is a columnar oak which is a hybrid of the non-native English Oak (Quercus robur fastigata) and the Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor). The upright branches are typical of this cultivar. Leaves are lobed with a bright green surface but are lighter underneath. The long acorns have a long stalk.

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Northern Red Oak
(Quercus rubra)

This is the common oak of eastern Canada. They can live up to 150 years, with straight trunks and symmetrical crown. The leaves have bristle-tipped teeth on the larger lobes. The acorns are almost as wide as they are long and the cap covers about one-quarter of the nut. The young bark is smooth with grooves beginning to develop into the unbroken vertical ridges of the mature tree. It is the provincial tree of Prince Edward Island.

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Swamp White Oak
(Quercus bicolor)

This small to medium-sized tree is uncommon in Canada, occurring in southern Quebec and southern Ontario. It can live for  200 years.  In shape the upper branches ascend but the lower ones usually droop. As the name suggests, it likes to grow on the edges of swamps. The shallowly lobed leaves are widest above the middle, tapering to a wedge-shaped base. They are pale and hairy underneath and dark green on the upper side. The acorns have a large scaly cap.

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Scarlet Oak
(Quercus coccinea)

The Scarlet Oak is native to the eastern United States and in most southern parts of Canada. It is a popular ornamental because of the leaves which are bright green in summer but scarlet in the fall. The leaves have deeply indented pointed lobes. The cap of the acorn encloses up to one-half of the nut with tight thin light-reddish brown scales. The bark is dark brown, nearly black with shallow furrows and irregular ridges.

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American Beech
(Fagus grandiflora)

The Beech is an integral part of the mature forest of Eastern Canada and can grow for up to 200 years. The ovate-toothed leaves stay on the branches so the russet colour glows against the snow in the winter sunshine. The distinctive smooth bluish-grey bark of the mature tree stands out among the hardwoods like elephants of the forest. Edible nuts are encased in a bristly husk. The wood has varied uses from flooring to handles.

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Artwork by Julian Mulock