13 December 2023
The Nutty Collection: Acorns and the Quercus genus
On a daily basis I attempt to carry you solutions about nature and birds, occasionally to questions we by no means idea to invite, however lately I’ve extra questions than solutions about acorns.
Acorns are difficult as a result of oaks are extraordinarily various. There are about 500 species within the Quercus genus (oaks) plus about 180 hybrids, they all local to the Northern Hemisphere and Asia.
Your complete phylogeny diagram is densely packed. (In case you’d like to look it up shut, click on right here for the full-size model.)
North The united states has the biggest choice of local oak species (160 in Mexico, about 90 in the USA), which makes figuring out them a problem. Sibley’s Information to Timber illustrates 69 local and seven imported oaks in North The united states. Pittsburgh is on Sibley’s vary maps for those oak species however the checklist isn’t exhaustive as a result of they hybridize.
- Purple Oak Staff
- Northern Purple Oak
- Japanese Black Oak
- Pin Oak
- Scarlet Oak
- Endure Oak
- Shingle Oak
- White Oak Staff
- Japanese White Oak
- Swamp White Oak
- Burr Oak
- Chestnut Oak
- Not unusual Chinkapin Oak
- (non-native) English Oak
The most efficient I will do within the box is divide them into the crimson oak or white oak workforce in accordance with buds, bark and leaves. Understanding this, I draw back at figuring out acorns all the way down to the species degree. There may be best such a lot room in my mind and I’m saving it for birds.
So with that during thoughts listed below are a couple of acorns I’ve present in Pittsburgh not too long ago. What precise species are they? The one one I do know needless to say is the burr oak.
