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13 December 2023
The Nutty Collection: Acorns and the Quercus genus
Day-after-day I attempt to carry you solutions about nature and birds, typically to questions we by no means thought to ask, however as we speak I’ve extra questions than solutions about acorns.
Acorns are difficult as a result of oaks are extraordinarily numerous. There are about 500 species within the Quercus genus (oaks) plus about 180 hybrids, all of them native to the Northern Hemisphere and Asia.
The whole phylogeny diagram is densely packed. (In case you’d prefer to see it up shut, click on right here for the full-size model.)
North America has the biggest variety of native oak species (160 in Mexico, about 90 within the US), which makes figuring out them a problem. Sibley’s Information to Timber illustrates 69 native and seven imported oaks in North America. Pittsburgh is on Sibley’s vary maps for these oak species however the record isn’t exhaustive as a result of they hybridize.
- Purple Oak Group
- Northern Purple Oak
- Jap Black Oak
- Pin Oak
- Scarlet Oak
- Bear Oak
- Shingle Oak
- White Oak Group
- Jap White Oak
- Swamp White Oak
- Burr Oak
- Chestnut Oak
- Widespread Chinkapin Oak
- (non-native) English Oak
One of the best I can do within the area is divide them into the crimson oak or white oak group based mostly on buds, bark and leaves. Realizing this, I balk at figuring out acorns all the way down to the species stage. There’s solely a lot room in my mind and I’m saving it for birds.
So with that in thoughts listed here are a couple of acorns I’ve present in Pittsburgh lately. What precise species are they? The one one I do know for certain is the burr oak.
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