White oaks

Last weekend I went to a dance camp in New York state. I danced English country dances that date back as far as 1695, and some written in the 21st century. I also danced some New England contra dances for the first time in five years. I had a wonderful time (see photo by Michael Zumoff)!

The camp is located in the area of Newburgh, New York, a two-and-a-half hour drive north of Montgomery, on the shore of a small lake (see photo). Beautiful old white oak trees (trees native from Canada to Florida and Maine to Texas) dot the lawns where the land slopes down to the lake. The ground was littered with their acorns, and I started gathering them to bring home. To my surprise, many were already germinating, sending out roots (see photo). My husband and I have some white oak trees growing in the woods at the back of our property, but I have never seen their acorns (I think the squirrels get them first), and white oak seedlings there are few and far between.

Oak trees are very important to our ecosystem here in central New Jersey. Oak is a climax forest species. Every land-based plant community here in our area constantly changes and evolves until it becomes a climax forest, which is self-perpetuating. This process is called succession. We've all seen cedar trees coming up in fields. They are a "pioneer species." Cedar trees won't grow up in the shade, so some other trees take over once the cedars grow tall and thick. Eventually, oak and hickory trees dominate the forest, and that's a climax forest. Oak trees produce acorns which are eaten by a wide variety of wildlife. They produce thick, leathery leaves full of tanin, which decompose slowly, protecting the forest floor from erosion. And oak trees support more moths and butterflies than any other type of tree.

Oak trees are divided into white oak trees, which have rounded tips on their leaves, and red oaks, which have pointed leaves with bristle tips. White and red oak are also names of two individual species of trees. The acorns I found were from the white oak tree, Quercus alba, which is one of many oak trees with rounded leaves (see photo). Unfortunately, a disease known as bacterial leaf scorch (BLS) is slowly killing red oaks (but not white oaks). Because I would like to have more trees growing on my property that are resistant to this devastating disease, I collected almost two hundred of the white oak acorns and brought them home. They are in ziplock bags with moist paper towels in my refrigerator. Now I have to plant them before their little roots die, and find a way to protect them from squirrels. If our area loses its red oak trees to BLS, we will all need more white oak trees .