Northern red oak
Quercus rubra
Family · Fagaceae · Harmless
The oak planted in parks, avenues and some northern woods, which announces itself in autumn with dark red foliage. It is not from here: it came from North America and in places already seeds itself.
Oak woods · Town and roadside · Uplands
Also known asred oak, champion oak
How to tell it
A large tree to twenty-five metres, with a straight trunk and smooth grey bark when young. The leaf has seven to eleven pointed lobes, each ending in a fine bristle, with shallow sinuses between them, which separates it from our oaks, whose lobes are rounded and bristleless. The acorn is stout, with a shallow beret-like cup, and takes two years to form.
What it is confused with
Pedunculate oak
Quercus robur
Ours has rounded lobes without a bristle, a very short leaf stalk and acorns on a long peduncle. The American has pointed lobes each ending in a bristle and turns red in autumn. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
Construction and furniture timber in America. Here it is an ornamental and a plantation tree. The acorns are very bitter and lack the food use that holm oak acorns had.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.