[williamthomas]

I have two large trees from the red oak group in my yard. They look pretty much the same to me, but I’m not sure which member of the red oak group they are. At various times, I’ve thought they were northern red, shumard, and black oak. I know these species tend to hybridize, so there’s not necessarily a clear cut answer, but I’m wondering if it’s obvious to anyone on the forum. Unfortunately I don’t have any acorns to work from at the moment, and the buds are too high up to access. There’s always so much variation in the leaves, that the guides don’t really serve much purpose to me. I may read that the leaves cuneate, but then I’ll find a bunch on the same tree that truncate. Or the depth of the lobes will be different, etc. And websites haven’t helped much either, as a red oak leaf from one website will look like a black oak leaf on another.

The inner bark picture I got looks a little more vibrant in color than in reality, thanks to smartphones over-saturating images. But that bark goes with the tree whose leaf has less lobes. The other leaf pictured with more lobes is from the other tree I have. Thanks.

[Fatzo]

Hmmm this definitely won’t be an easy identification… I think since you mentioned they’re deeply lobed, we can rule out the Northern variety. But distinguishing between Shumard and Black oak won’t be easy.

Did you by any chance compare your trees to these pages?
http://www.namethatplant.net/plantdetail.shtml?plant=1199
http://www.namethatplant.net/plantdetail.shtml?plant=1202

Maybe you can upload larger pictures on your profile in an album?

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