The Mighty Oak Tree

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus, and some related genera, notably Cyclobalanopsis and Lithocarpus.

The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cold latitudes to tropical Asia and the Americas. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with a lobed margin in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with a smooth margin.

The flowers are catkins, produced in spring.

The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a cup-like structure known as a cupule; each acorn contains one seed (rarely two or three) and takes 6-18 months to mature, depending on species.

Oaks are hardwood trees, and the wood is commonly used in furniture and flooring.

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of several hundred species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus, and some related genera, notably Cyclobalanopsis and Lithocarpus.

The genus is native to the northern hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cold latitudes to tropical Asia and the Americas. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with a lobed margin in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with a smooth margin.

The flowers are catkins, produced in spring.

The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a cup-like structure known as a cupule; each acorn contains one seed (rarely two or three) and takes 6-18 months to mature, depending on species.

Oaks are hardwood trees, and the wood is commonly used in furniture and flooring.

The Value of Trees

Imagine a world without trees. It’s virtually impossible, because without trees we can’t survive. Trees are essential to life and yet, they are taken for granted. Unfortunately, one million acres of forest are lost to city growth each year.

Trees offer many benefits that are obscure to many, which include:

• Air Filtration- filters out particulate matter and absorbs harmful gases
• Purifies Water-improves water quality by slowing and filtering rain water
• Cost Reduction- provides shade and shelter, reducing yearly heating and cooling costs by 2.1 billion dollars
• Climate Control-obtained by moderating the effects of sun, wind, and rain
• Increase Property Value- well-cared landscape properties are 5-20% more valuable than non-landscaped estates
• Protection-from downward fall of rain, sleet, and hail, as well as reducing storm run-off, and the possibility of flooding
• Glare and Reflection Control
• Wind Break, Deflection, and Filtration
• Sound Barrier

Since trees are a growing asset to any property, maintenance of the trees is crucial for long-term health, safety, and aesthetic value. Many people do not realize that trees have a dollar value of their own. Competent tree appraisers can determine the dollar value of your trees and plants by evaluating the size, type (classification), condition, and location of the tree.

Benefits of Trees

Most trees and shrubs in cities or communities are planted to provide beauty or shade. These are two excellent reasons for their use. Woody plants also serve many other purposes, and it often is helpful to consider these other functions when selecting a tree or shrub for the landscape. The benefits of trees can be grouped into social, communal, environmental, and economic categories.

Social Benefits

We like trees around us because they make life more pleasant. Most of us respond to the presence of trees beyond simply observing their beauty. We feel serene, peaceful, restful, and tranquil in a grove of trees. We are “at home” there. Hospital patients have been shown to recover from surgery more quickly when their hospital room offered a view of trees. The strong ties between people and trees are most evident in the resistance of community residents to removing trees to widen streets. Or we note the heroic efforts of individuals and organizations to save particularly large or historic trees in a community.

The stature, strength, and endurance of trees give them a cathedral-like quality. Because of their potential for long life, trees frequently are planted as living memorials. We often become personally attached to trees that we or those we love have planted.

Communal Benefits

Even though trees may be private property, their size often makes them part of the community as well. Because trees occupy considerable space, planning is required if both you and your neighbors are to benefit. With proper selection and maintenance, trees can enhance and function on one property without infringing on the rights and privileges of neighbors.

City trees often serve several architectural and engineering functions. They provide privacy, emphasize views, or screen out objectionable views. They reduce glare and reflection. They direct pedestrian traffic. They provide background to and soften, complement, or enhance architecture.

Environmental Benefits

Trees alter the environment in which we live by moderating climate, improving air quality, conserving water, and harboring wildlife. Climate control is obtained by moderating the effects of sun, wind, and rain. Radiant energy from the sun is absorbed or deflected by leaves on deciduous trees in the summer and is only filtered by branches of deciduous trees in winter. We are cooler when we stand in the shade of trees and are not exposed to direct sunlight. In winter, we value the sun’s radiant energy. Therefore, we should plant only small or deciduous trees on the south side of homes.

Wind speed and direction can be affected by trees. The more compact the foliage on the tree or group of trees, the greater the influence of the windbreak. The downward fall of rain, sleet, and hail is initially absorbed or deflected by trees, which provides some protection for people, pets, and buildings. Trees intercept water, store some of it, and reduce storm runoff and the possibility of flooding.

Dew and frost are less common under trees because less radiant energy is released from the soil in those areas at night.

Temperature in the vicinity of trees is cooler than that away from trees. The larger the tree, the greater the cooling. By using trees in the cities, we are able to moderate the heat-island effect caused by pavement and buildings in commercial areas.

Air quality can be improved through the use of trees, shrubs, and turf. Leaves filter the air we breathe by removing dust and other particulates. Rain then washes the pollutants to the ground. Leaves absorb carbon dioxide from the air to form carbohydrates that are used in the plant’s structure and function. In this process, leaves also absorb other air pollutants—such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide—and give off oxygen.

By planting trees and shrubs, we return to a more natural, less artificial environment. Birds and other wildlife are attracted to the area. The natural cycles of plant growth, reproduction, and decomposition are again present, both above and below ground. Natural harmony is restored to the urban environment.

Economic Benefits

Individual trees and shrubs have value, but the variability of species, size, condition, and function makes determining their economic value difficult. The economic benefits of trees can be both direct and indirect. Direct economic benefits are usually associated with energy costs. Air-conditioning costs are lower in a tree-shaded home. Heating costs are reduced when a home has a windbreak. Trees increase in value from the time they are planted until they mature. Trees are a wise investment of funds because landscaped homes are more valuable than nonlandscaped homes. The savings in energy costs and the increase in property value directly benefit each home owner.

The indirect economic benefits of trees are even greater. These benefits are available to the community or region. Lowered electricity bills are paid by customers when power companies are able to use less water in their cooling towers, build fewer new facilities to meet peak demands, use reduced amounts of fossil fuel in their furnaces, and use fewer measures to control air pollution. Communities also can save money if fewer facilities must be built to control storm water in the region. To the individual, these savings are small, but to the community, reductions in these expenses are often in the thousands of dollars.

Trees Require an Investment

Trees provide numerous aesthetic and economic benefits but also incur some costs. You need to be aware that an investment is required for your trees to provide the benefits that you desire. The biggest cost of trees and shrubs occurs when they are purchased and planted. Initial care almost always includes some watering. Leaf, branch, and whole tree removal and disposal can be expensive.

To function well in the landscape, trees require maintenance. Much can be done by the informed home owner. Corrective pruning and mulching gives trees a good start. Shade trees, however, quickly grow to a size that may require the services of a professional arborist. Arborists have the knowledge and equipment needed to prune, spray, fertilize, and otherwise maintain a large tree. Your garden center owner, university extension agent, community forester, or consulting arborist can answer questions about tree maintenance, suggest treatments, or recommend qualified arborists.

Record-setting Trees

• One of the tallest soft wood trees is the General Sherman, a giant redwood sequoia of California. General Sherman is about 275 ft or 84 m high with a girth of 25 ft or 8 m.
• The 236 ft or 72 m high Ada Tree of Australia has a 50 ft or 15.4 m girth and a root system that takes up more than an acre.
• The world’s tallest tree is a coast redwood in California, measuring more than 360 ft or 110 m.
• The world’s oldest trees are 4,600 year old Bristlecone pines in the USA.

Trees and Science

• Dendrochronology is the science of calculating a tree’s age by its rings.
• Tree rings provide precise information about environmental events, including volcanic eruptions.
• A mature birch tree can produce up to 1 million seeds per year.
• Moon trees were grown from seeds taken to the moon by Stuart Roosa, Command Module pilot of the Apollo 14 mission of January 31, 1971. The effort included 400-500 seeds, which orbited the moon on the first few days of February 1971. NASA and the USFS wanted to see if being in space and in the moon’s orbit would cause the seeds to grow differently than other seeds.

Trees and the Environment

Tree Facts

• Trees renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
• The amount of oxygen produced by an acre of trees per year equals the amount consumed by 18 people annually. One tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year.
• One acre of trees removes up to 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
• Shade trees can make buildings up to 20 degrees cooler in the summer.
• Trees lower air temperature by evaporating water in their leaves.
• Tree roots stabilize soil and prevent erosion.
• Trees improve water quality by slowing and filtering rain water, as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds.
• The cottonwood tree seed is the seed that stays in flight the longest. The tiny seed is surrounded by ultra-light, white fluff hairs that can carry it on the air for several days.

Tree Facts

Tree Biology

• Trees are the longest living organisms on earth.
• Trees and other plants make their food through a process called photosynthesis.
• The inside of a tree is made of cork, phloem, cambium, and xylem.
• The xylem of a tree carries water from the roots to the leaves.

Trees as Futures

Better a living monument, which you enjoy, than a posthumous headstone.

Twelve years is a ripe age for a dog or cat, eighteen for a cow, twenty-five for a horse, thirty for a mule, sixty for an elephant. Modern medicine has extended man’s life expectancy to about seventy-five years. Certain parrots, tamed wild geese, and snapping turtles are said to have lived 150 years and more. In comparison to such brief life spans, many trees are “immortal.”

It took Donna in September 1960—one of the worse hurricanes in recorded U.S. weather history—finally to lay low the Thorndale Oak, a red giant at Millbrook, N.Y., measuring 24 feet 9 inches in girth, whose age was gauged at 353 years. The acorn whence this tree grew apparently sprouted some seasons before the Dutch first sailed up the nearby Hudson River in 1610.

What are Trees?

Trees are woody plants which continue growing until they die. They are perennial plants, and are classified as having a distinct, self-supporting main stem, or trunk, containing woody tissues that produces secondary limbs and branches. Their height and single main stem differentiate them from shrubs, which are usually shorter and have many stems.

Some species of tree only grow to 4 m (13 ft) high. The tallest species, redwoods and eucalyptus, reach heights of more than 110 m (360 ft). The giant sequoia redwood tree, named General Sherman Tree, in California’s Sequoia National Park, has grown to a height of 84 m (275 ft) and a diameter of 11 m (37 ft). Trees live anywhere from a few years to thousands of years. There is a bristlecone pine growing in California’s White Mountains that has been dated as at least 4700 years old.

Trees grow just about everywhere on Earth, from extreme cold regions near the Arctic and the Antarctic to hot tropical regions around the equator and even in deserts. Although trees can grow singly, in nature they more often grow in stands consisting of one or of a mixture of species. As more trees toward the outside of the stand grow and become mature, they drop seeds and continue the spread of the stand.

Forests are plant communities made up of the trees, shrubs, and many other plants and animals. In North America, forests typically include only a few different species of trees, but in tropical forests, hundreds of different species can be found.

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