The tutor shares another interesting field find.

I’d say that where I live, we don’t have any native oaks. The garry oak occurs naturally on Vancouver Island, but just south of here. It’s a white oak; its leaves are rounded. The local oaks I see around Campbell River have pointed leaves, meaning they are red oaks. It also means they are transplants; no variety of red oak that I know of lives here naturally.

Given our mild climate, we do have lots of exotic trees planted locally, among them many red oaks. Most of them originate from the eastern half of the continent, in places like Ontario, Ohio, or even the Maritimes. Therefore, they easily withstand our gentle winters.

Down in Nanaimo last weekend, at the same time I was discovering the black locust (see my post here), I walked by some pin oak trees. I was confident I knew them from my readings years back; the leaves have distinctively deep sinuses between the lobes. Under one of them I found a small acorn, about 1.5cm long of rounded shape (rather than oblong) with a flat cup (as opposed to deep).

The leaf, about 12cm, and with five main lobes, also agrees with the field guide. I’m happy to confirm a positive ID of a pin oak:)

Sources:

Brockman, Frank, Rebecca Merrilees and Herbert Zim. Trees of North America. New   York: Golden Press, 1968.

Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon. Plants of Coastal British Columbia. Vancouver:
   BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, 1994.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.