Oak-ey Dokey

When we first moved to Farm Dover, I could barely tell the difference between an oak tree and any other hardwood tree. Over time, I looked more closely and gradually I began to identify which trees were oaks. But then, as I looked even closer, I began to see that our farm was full of different kinds of oaks – more than a dozen.

Ed and I have been on a quest lately to identify the various kinds of oaks on our farm. It is very, very hard, much harder than you would think. Some of the leaves have rounded lobes, some have pointed ones. Some have deep indentations and some have shallow ones. Some leaves are shiny; others are dull. Some of the leaves are huge; some are tiny (all over the tree). Here's a sample of the leaves we found just today as we were making our rounds.

From left to right, here's what we think we found:

1.   Chestnut Oak
2.   Shumard Oak
3.   Bur Oak
4.   Northern Red Oak
5.   Post Oak
6.   Swamp White Oak
7.   Willow Oak
8.   Overcup Oak
9.   Red Oak
10. Southern White Oak
11. Pin Oak
12. Northern Red Oak

If any Farm Dover blog readers are better leaf identifiers than we, please tell us which we got right and which we didn't.