# Are these Pin Oak or Red Oak Seedlings? (Pictures Inside)



## mademesomepie

I asked this on Yahoo Answers a couple of days ago, but haven't received any definite answers yet:

"I have two oak seedlings that I removed from my backyard (not enough room for a large tree, much less two) and potted them indoors. The problem is that I find oak species very hard to tell apart while they're seedlings, so I'd like someone here to help me out : ) I also have no oak trees immediately nearby (the nearest ones I know of are at least 150 feet away, and there are both red and pin types. I'm guessing the acorns were buried and luckily forgotten by the many squirrels that live around here in Brooklyn, NY).

Here's the first one:





It just popped up this past spring, and hasn't grown more than an inch in the past two months. I plucked a damaged leaf off a couple of days ago, and the day after, a second set of leaves started budding in the center. Not sure if it's coincidence or consequence. 

Here are pictures of the second set of leaves spreading out two days after that first picture was taken:







<BR><BR>
And this is what it looked like the first time I saw it back in early May, moments before I plucked it up out of the backyard. It had a very long taproot that extended into this crack, and as I wrestled this tiny thing out of the cement, I heard the root break with a loud snap (I was putting so much force into it that I almost fell backwards on my ass!) : 






I found this larger one yesterday growing from just under my neighbour's side of the fence and poking diagonally into mine, hence the stake, which I hope will straighten the plant out as it grows.




It's about a foot tall, so I'm guessing it's in its second year. I've always read about oaks developing really long taproots early on, but this one came up surprisingly easily with a small, round, and fuzzy root ball and what looked like the acorn still attached.

I'm really hoping that at least one of them is a red oak, as I've seen a lot of pin oaks around here with that infamously unfortunate chlorosis."

I also don't want pin oaks because I think they're overly common and somewhat unattractive and weak-looking, at least in comparison to the few reds I see around here. I'm also new to tree identification, so please try not to give me a hard time!


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## jamied

Did you say you have these in the house??

This is not a great time of year for transplanting seedlings.

It's hard for me to tell what they are at this age. 

If you want a red oak why not just go buy one?


Jamie
Neenah, WI


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## Sagetown

A variety of Pin Oak.


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## mademesomepie

jamied said:


> Did you say you have these in the house??
> 
> This is not a great time of year for transplanting seedlings.
> 
> It's hard for me to tell what they are at this age.
> 
> If you want a red oak why not just go buy one?
> 
> 
> Jamie
> Neenah, WI


 
Why buy one when I might have them growing in my own backyard? And I know it's not the ideal time of year, but I can't have any trees wrecking my house, and I figured it would be better to pot them than kill them. That big one was less than 2 feet away from my already cracked foundation. Sure, if I lived out in the Midwest like you do, and had a sizable plot of land, I would have kept both plants outside where they belong. In a typical New York 15'x 15' backyard, there isn't room for much other than a hedge and a few potted flowers. Thank you for replying.


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## mademesomepie

Sagetown said:


> A variety of Pin Oak.


 
Hmm, I was afraid so. What features helped you identify them? And are they the same variety? They look to be different types, although I'm not sure if that's just because of the age difference. I wouldn't be surprised if that big one was a pin because it had a puffy root ball, while the small one had 2 single taproots, one being a lot longer than the other.


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## forestryworks

A "Pin Oak" is a red oak.


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## mademesomepie

forestryworks said:


> A "Pin Oak" is a red oak.


 Yes, from what I've read, there's the red oak family containing the pin oak (quercus palustris), and the northern red oak species, quercus rubra. A little confusing, at least for me, but I hope this helps.

So, when my trees are adults, will their leaves look like this (pin oak)



<BR><BR>
or like this (northern red oak)?


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## jamied

You can't grow a healthy oak tree in your house. 

Waiting now till spring would very likely not have made any difference to the house, the roots on a seedling grow pretty slowly. But the chance of it surviving grealy increases if you wait until late fall or early spring.

You can buy a potted 3+ year old oak on sale this time of year for under $20 and it will already be 5-6' tall.


Jamie
Neenah, WI


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## Sagetown

mademesomepie said:


> Hmm, I was afraid so. *What features helped you identify them*? And are they the same variety? They look to be different types, although I'm not sure if that's just because of the age difference. I wouldn't be surprised if that big one was a pin because it had *a puffy root ball,* while the small one had 2 single taproots, one being a lot longer than the other.



The elongated leaf pattern of the pin oaks compared to the broader leaf of the red oaks. The pin oaks usually will have long narrow recesses close to the stem the flare out to a few pins where as the red oaks leaf doesn't recess nearly as deep between the pins. Black Jack Oak also has pins but the leaf is thick and broad.
The last oak in your picture does look like its a red oak. The previous ones actually look like a Shumard Oak of the southern states. 

The puffy ball you saw was probably what's left of the acorn it sprung from. The acorns can add to the tree identity too. Red Oak acorns have a very small cup with 7/8's of the casing showing. The Pin Oak acorn covers 1/3'rd of a smaller more rounded casing.


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## Sagetown

I dug this Shumard Oak along with 4 others after they leafed early this spring. Not recommended, but I didn't want to wait. 
They've had a struggle , but I strawed them and keep them watered, and they are thriving so far.


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## chucker

they look like white oaks to me ... the same leaf figure as the ones i planted last year.


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## forestryworks

jamied said:


> You can't grow a healthy oak tree in your house.
> 
> Waiting now till spring would very likely not have made any difference to the house, the roots on a seedling grow pretty slowly. But the chance of it surviving grealy increases if you wait until late fall or early spring.
> 
> You can buy a potted 3+ year old oak on sale this time of year for under $20 and it will already be 5-6' tall.
> 
> 
> Jamie
> Neenah, WI


 
Those 5-6' potted trees won't have much of a root system either. Not for supporting a 5-6' tree anyways.


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## Sagetown

chucker said:


> they look like white oaks to me ... the same leaf figure as the ones i planted last year.


 
The main difference is the absence of the pins on the white oak leaf.


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## mademesomepie

Sagetown said:


> The elongated leaf pattern of the pin oaks compared to the broader leaf of the red oaks. The pin oaks usually will have long narrow recesses close to the stem the flare out to a few pins where as the red oaks leaf doesn't recess nearly as deep between the pins. Black Jack Oak also has pins but the leaf is thick and broad.
> The last oak in your picture does look like its a red oak. The previous ones actually look like a Shumard Oak of the southern states.
> 
> The puffy ball you saw was probably what's left of the acorn it sprung from. The acorns can add to the tree identity too. Red Oak acorns have a very small cup with 7/8's of the casing showing. The Pin Oak acorn covers 1/3'rd of a smaller more rounded casing.


 
Thanks a million! This is the kind of answer I've been trying to get for the past 2 or 3 months. And by "puffy root ball," I didn't mean the attached acorn, but the actual roots beneath it. They were spherical, fluffy, and maybe an inch in diameter, and very dry and dusty as well. Very different from the smaller oak's roots. I should have also mentioned that I'm going to put all of my deciduous plants outdoors when the weather gets cool enough (whenever it's too cold to keep the windows open). In New York, that's usually around October 13-15. I also have a number of other young indoor plants: a red maple (no idea what cultivar), a California avocado, 2 pineapples, 3 pomegranates, 6 lemons, 9 oranges, and 2 giant sequoias (3, if the cloning works), a bell pepper, and a cloned blue star juniper shrub. God help me when these things get bigger


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## mademesomepie

Sagetown said:


> The main difference is the absence of the pins on the white oak leaf.


 
I was just about to say that, both of these oaks have the lobes tapering to a little hair/spike, which put them both in the red oak family. I like the look of white oaks though, not many here in Brooklyn.


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## mademesomepie

Sagetown said:


> I dug this Shumard Oak along with 4 others after they leafed early this spring. Not recommended, but I didn't want to wait.
> They've had a struggle , but I strawed them and keep them watered, and they are thriving so far.


 

Beautiful Shumard you have there! I haven't seen one in person, much less in seedling form. And what does the straw do, is that like light mulching? If that's slug or snail damage you have, I found that spreading a thorough layer of perlite and crushed egg shells around the base will keep them away.


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## Sagetown

mademesomepie ; you mentioned in your 1st post, that after removing the damaged leaf, new leaves appeared. THis is the norm. You can leave the damagaed leaves alone, and new ones will still grow out from the top center. 4 of mine have nearly drowned from constant rain, then hot weather affected them, then lack of watering on my part. Through each event the leaves shown mild signs of stress, and as they gained strength new leaves appeared. 

The only one that hasn't been affected is the one I sat my grandchildrens plastic slide and tunnel combo over. It protects the tree from wind on two sides, and gives it shade early and late in the day, and mainly keeps me from running over it with my lawnmower.


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## jamied

mademesomepie said:


> I should have also mentioned that I'm going to put all of my deciduous plants outdoors when the weather gets cool enough (whenever it's too cold to keep the windows open). In New York, that's usually around October 13-15.



I'd think about having them out there a little earlier so they can have more time to go though the fall process that prepares them for winter.



mademesomepie said:


> I also have a number of other young indoor plants: a red maple (no idea what cultivar), a California avocado, 2 pineapples, 3 pomegranates, 6 lemons, 9 oranges, and 2 giant sequoias (3, if the cloning works), a bell pepper, and a cloned blue star juniper shrub. God help me when these things get bigger


 

I don't know if you plan to have these trees inside in the future or not. However, most trees are seedlings are more shade / low light tolerant then they are when they get older. Once most trees gets a bit older, you will find that they need a huge amount of light to just survive. Modern glass filters out a lot of the uv rays so the light is far less useable for the trees. Oaks are somewhat, but not very shade tolerant as they get older.

You will find that growing the deciduous trees inside extremely difficult as they get older. 

Make sure you are using a fast soil and a good fert like Foliage Pro.

Also make sure you protect those tree pots outside over winter with large amounts of mulch or by keeping them in a garage. Do not keep them too wet over winter or the roots will rot.


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## ch woodchuck

Looks to be a northern red oak......

CSC Virtual Herbarium - Northern Red Oak


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