13 December 2023
The Nutty Sequence: Acorns and the Quercus genus
Each day I attempt to convey you solutions about nature and birds, generally to questions we by no means thought to ask, however in the present day I’ve extra questions than solutions about acorns.
Acorns are sophisticated 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. (Should 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 Bushes illustrates 69 native and seven imported oaks in North America. Pittsburgh is on Sibley’s vary maps for these oak species however the record is just not exhaustive as a result of they hybridize.
- Pink Oak Group
- Northern Pink 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
- Frequent Chinkapin Oak
- (non-native) English Oak
The very best I can do within the subject is divide them into the pink oak or white oak group primarily based on buds, bark and leaves. Understanding 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 actual species are they? The one one I do know for certain is the burr oak.
