shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria)
Fagaceae, the beech family
How to recognize shingle oak. Egad. The leaves aren’t lobed are they? This isn’t a cherry? No, it’s an oak. A member of the red oak group ibn fact…the one that would have bristle-tips on the lobes, if it had any lobes (the leaf does end in a bristle). Note how the leaves, which have smooth margins, are indeed alternate but are clustered towards the tips of the branches, giving a faux whorled aspect. The are lance-oblong.
Shingle oak leaves are unlobed.
A feature of the tree that may help ID is that it often is host to a woody twig gall caused by a minute wasp in the oak gall wasp family Cynipidae – Callirhytis quercuspunctata.
gall wasp on shingle oak
Flowers and fruits.
In the winter.
Where to find autumn-olive. E. Lucy Braun, in The Woody Plants of Ohio (1961, 1989; The Ohio State University Press) tell us that that
Scanned Image from an Old Book
(Flora of West Virginia, by P.D. Strausbaugh and Earl L. Core)
Ooh ooh. I have a question!