I noticed a person on this site was asking about a hybrd oak tree which looks a lot like mine. The post was from 2005, so I am starting a new thread. He lives in Stony Plain, Alberta. I also live near Edmonton, Alberta, quite far north-oaks aren't native to this area. The tree was bought as a Burr oak--and was a Charlie Brown tree, an odd shape, and bought for half price at a St. Albert nursery, just north of Edmonton. We expected it to be a slow grower, but the tree has tripled in size since we bought it in 2003. It does have the mossy cups of the Burr but its leaves turn a glorious red in the fall, not the yellow leaves of the Burr oak. Our neighbour has a Burr oak and it only grows a tiny bit each year and is always yellow in the fall. The leaves' nodes are rounded like the Burr and the white oak, so I am wondering, do we have a hybrid? I know the white oak grows faster than the Burr oak, and that the two trees can mate. I have pictures but am a Luddite and don't know how to download on this site. Cheers and thanks. jannybug
use the 'go advanced' option when posting and then scroll down to get to the 'manage attachments' button and click on it for the pop-up window to add your pics. you can upload directly from your computer or link to a hosting site like photobucket, shutterfly, etc. just follow the directions in whichever section you use. after doing the 'browse' to find the pic, make sure to click the 'upload' button and wait until the pic uploads or you get an error message. if you get an error, it'll tell you what the problem is and you can fix it and then redo the browse and upload.
Thanks, Jocelyn for the instructions. I think I did it! I shall try to post a pic of the tree from last year. This isn't a great picture but you can see the leaves turning dark red. I hope I uploaded a pic of the tree and not somebody's wedding! jannybug
Bur Oak can grow fast when it is young; the leaves on your tree do look like one (though a close-up would help!). Equally, hybrids between Bur Oak and White Oak are known, so that is possible.
Oaks also can show some variety in autumn coloring, even among members of the same species growing in similar conditions. There is a stand of (what I believe to be) mature Northern Pin Oak, Quercus ellipsoidalis, at the Togus VA Center in Augusta, Maine, and one individual among this group of perhaps a dozen trees displays the most amazing burnt-orange autumn coloring. I collected some acorns last fall and have a couple of seedlings in the woods out back, in hopes that they might have inherited the "orange" gene from their mama. Whatever you've got, it looks like a beautiful and shapely tree.
