Rare Oak

Beech Leaves

I was over to my parents on the weekend. My kids had a visit with my nephew who was staying with mom and dad for the weekend.  Whilst I was there my mother asked me if I'd like a tree as she had a few small ones that she was removing.  Among the trees was one that I didn't recognize, at first glance I thought it might be a beech.

Upon closer examination I realized that it wasn't a beech so I asked Mom what it was.  She told me it was an oak (the parent tree has acorns).

Chinquapin Oak Leaf

So when I got home I pulled out my book on local trees and looked up what I had been gifted with.  Turns out that mom and dad have three fairly rare oak trees on their lot.  Well the oaks are rare for our area, Chiquapin Oaks are fairly rare in Ontario and I'm hoping that this one survives since the acorns are edible.  Most acorns in our area are so bitter as to be inedible.

I looked at the parent trees and the acorns are quite long and the cup covers almost half of the acorn.

Hopefully the Chinquapin Oak survives as well as the Black Walnut trees.