Speaker 1: Chapter six of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: by Jennifer Almond. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes. The
Speaker 1: white Oak? What is a tree? Is it only a
Speaker 1: wooden trunk with wooden branches, a bark and leaves? There
Speaker 1: is something more. Let me tell you about it to day.
Speaker 1: It is the spirit of the tree. There is something
Speaker 1: about it, the shape of the head, the color of
Speaker 1: the leaves, the outline of the trunk, which tells a tale.
Speaker 1: The tree has an expression. Elms toss their long branches
Speaker 1: and are dainty. Birches are the most shy and ladylike
Speaker 1: of trees. What is the character of the oak? The
Speaker 1: short trunk, holding its immense weight of branches says I
Speaker 1: am strung. The great broad head of leaves says I
Speaker 1: am wise. The whole tree seems to say trust me,
Speaker 1: you can depend upon me. Its wood has shown the strength.
Speaker 1: The heart of the oak has been used for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years in the building of ships, and it will
Speaker 1: bear enormous strains. There needs no crown to mark the
Speaker 1: forest's king. The poet Keats saw that they looked wise
Speaker 1: and dignified. He calls them those green robed senators of
Speaker 1: mighty woods. If you had lived in England about two
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, you would probably have worshiped the oak trees.
Speaker 1: At that time there were great forests of oaks, and
Speaker 1: people saw in them such good qualities. They were so hearty,
Speaker 1: they rustled like giants with the wind and storm, and
Speaker 1: lived to be so old that the people and their priests,
Speaker 1: the druids, worshiped them. In southern Europe about the same
Speaker 1: time been told about the dryads or maidens who lived
Speaker 1: in trees. Sometimes they were even seen. A young Greek
Speaker 1: returning from the chase would tell the tale. I started
Speaker 1: a stag on the mountain and followed him until I
Speaker 1: was weary. Then I threw myself on the ground beneath
Speaker 1: some great oak trees. I heard the lisping of the leaves,
Speaker 1: and then a sweet voice singing. It almost sounded like
Speaker 1: the crooning of birds. Rest you rest, you, green boughs
Speaker 1: shade you kind when sing you soothe you soothe you
Speaker 1: sleep you sleep you. No bee hums near you, No
Speaker 1: bird flits above. You dream you, dream you, And then
Speaker 1: there slipped out of the trees some merry, misty maidens,
Speaker 1: and they danced and danced. I half raised my head,
Speaker 1: and they vanished like a flash. So you see. The
Speaker 1: Greeks also recognized the spirit of the tree. Some of
Speaker 1: the country people would even place food under the trees
Speaker 1: for the merry dryads. Nowadays we do not see the
Speaker 1: sprite that lives in the tree, but we examine her
Speaker 1: house very closely. If it is a white oak, we
Speaker 1: find a white trunk with a great dome shaped roof.
Speaker 1: This roof is upheld by stout many curved arms, and
Speaker 1: is covered over with leaves, bright green above and pale below.
Speaker 1: They have deep, blunt notches and are arranged so that
Speaker 1: every leaf may get some sunshine. The strangest thing about
Speaker 1: this roof is that it is only used in summer.
Speaker 1: In the fall, it becomes a deep red. The twigs
Speaker 1: cover their tips with the brown scales and begin to
Speaker 1: prepare new leaves for next summer's new roof. The leaves
Speaker 1: then fall, and the oak is ready for winter storms.
Speaker 1: These past the buds unfold and wooly pink leaves appear
Speaker 1: with warm weather, they turn green, and the oaks this
Speaker 1: new roof is complete. The oak bears two kinds of
Speaker 1: flowers on the same tree early in the year. The
Speaker 1: staminant flowers grow in catkins. There are eight stamens and tiny,
Speaker 1: many lobed calys, and there are many flowers in the catkin.
Speaker 1: The stamens provide the pollen. It is stored away in
Speaker 1: the two pockets of the anthers. These flowers are easily
Speaker 1: found in April or May. The other kind, the pistolate flowers,
Speaker 1: will escape you if you are not careful. They do
Speaker 1: not look at all like flowers, but like tiny pink
Speaker 1: knobs on the tender young shoots. All you can see
Speaker 1: is three or four pink lips peeping out of a
Speaker 1: tiny cup. The pollen falls upon these lips, and both
Speaker 1: the cup and the pistol within begin to grow. The
Speaker 1: pistol becomes the nut of the acorn, and the cup
Speaker 1: becomes the cap of the nut. The cap is interesting
Speaker 1: for it represents a branch of the tree, a branch which,
Speaker 1: instead of growing out and unfolding its leaves, has been
Speaker 1: kept short and harden the But it might help take
Speaker 1: care of the new oak. The baby, that is to
Speaker 1: become the lord of the forest. For each one of
Speaker 1: her many acorn children, the mother oak provides several things.
Speaker 1: She makes it a cap from a twig and a
Speaker 1: coat from the wall of the pistol. This horny coat
Speaker 1: keeps out the frost in the snow. In its two
Speaker 1: seed leaves, she stores food enough to last through the winter,
Speaker 1: and she gives it a tiny root, so it only
Speaker 1: has to keep on growing. The white oaks drop the
Speaker 1: acorns at the end of about six months, but the
Speaker 1: red oaks and the black oaks do not shed their
Speaker 1: acorns until they are a year and a half old.
Speaker 1: One windy day in October, an acorn fell from the
Speaker 1: top of the big white oak. It had been growing
Speaker 1: there since May. At that time it had been so
Speaker 1: small that you could hardly have seen it at all. Still,
Speaker 1: it held its six little brothers all together in the
Speaker 1: room at the bottom of the pistol. One of these
Speaker 1: had grown so fast that there was no room for
Speaker 1: the others. And at last it had the whole of
Speaker 1: the corny shell by itself. This was the baby oak
Speaker 1: of whose fortune I'm going to tell you. As it
Speaker 1: struck the ground, its cap fell off and it rolled
Speaker 1: down a hill. On and on it went until it
Speaker 1: lodged in a little hole near the foot of the hill.
Speaker 1: The wind which had started it brought leaves and covered it.
Speaker 1: Over here it was snug and quiet. Its cap was gone,
Speaker 1: but it had the hard brown coat which its mother
Speaker 1: tree had given it. There was a big round scar
Speaker 1: which showed where it had been broken off. It lay
Speaker 1: under the leaves for a long time. It did not
Speaker 1: feel the cold, and it did not see the snow
Speaker 1: that covered the ground. But in the spring, the melting
Speaker 1: snow soaked through the little tree's hard jacket. Then it
Speaker 1: awoke and drank and drank until the jacket actually cracked
Speaker 1: and split into three parts. Out of the rent crept
Speaker 1: a little root which turned and pushed down down. From
Speaker 1: between the two thick white seed leaves came a stem
Speaker 1: which grew up, but which kept its head bent over
Speaker 1: until it had pushed its way through the soil. Above.
Speaker 1: It was a slender, ruddish stem with pears of scaly
Speaker 1: leaves that did not look at all like leaves usually do.
Speaker 1: After a while it began to have leaves that were
Speaker 1: like those of the white oak. They were no longer
Speaker 1: in pairs and were green in color. These leaves made food,
Speaker 1: which was carried to the root and helped to feed it.
Speaker 1: By this time all the food which had been stored
Speaker 1: and the seed leaves had been used. During the summer,
Speaker 1: it grew to be a stout little tree, and in
Speaker 1: the fall it dropped its leaves and made ready for winter.
Speaker 1: The next summer it grew again and rested through the winter.
Speaker 1: In this way it became strong and hardy. Its branches thickened,
Speaker 1: and the whole had a sturdy look. The winds blew
Speaker 1: upon it, but it did not bend. The snows loaded
Speaker 1: its branches, but it broke not. The hail pelted it,
Speaker 1: and the clouds wept over it, and it still held
Speaker 1: its head to the storm and never weakened. As it
Speaker 1: grew older, it made flowers, and upon its branches were
Speaker 1: born other acorns. The wild birds nested in its branches.
Speaker 1: The squirrels filled their stores from its fruits. The woodpeckers
Speaker 1: also carried the acorns away, digging little holes into it,
Speaker 1: which they put them for safe keeping. The mistletoe clung
Speaker 1: to its branches, green even in wintertime, and the ivy
Speaker 1: wound its slender stems about its trunk, so you can
Speaker 1: see the little oak had become a power in the
Speaker 1: forest and repaid the carrot had received. Some of the
Speaker 1: best known oaks. There are a great many different kinds
Speaker 1: of oaks. Would you like to be able to recognize
Speaker 1: a few of the common ones. The flowers are all
Speaker 1: very closely alike. The leaves are not always the same
Speaker 1: on the same tree, But the acorns and the acorn
Speaker 1: cups are so constant that we use them in distinguishing
Speaker 1: between the kinds. October or November is the best time
Speaker 1: to study them. Look sharply when you go to the
Speaker 1: woods or to the park and bring in a few
Speaker 1: leaves and twig with some acorns. Be sure to find
Speaker 1: out at the same time if the acorns fall at
Speaker 1: the end of the first year or at the end
Speaker 1: of the second, You will find the last on the
Speaker 1: tree during the winter. Those which fall the first year
Speaker 1: are called annual fruited. They have usually a sweet kernel.
Speaker 1: Those that fall the second year are called bi annual fruited,
Speaker 1: they have a bitter kernel. We will suppose your acorn
Speaker 1: is one of the first and has a sweet kernel.
Speaker 1: It may either be a white oak or a chestnut oak,
Speaker 1: or a live oak. If it is either of the
Speaker 1: first two, the leaves will fall at the approach of winter,
Speaker 1: but if it is the last, they do not. The
Speaker 1: white oaks have very deeply notched leaves with blunt lobes,
Speaker 1: while the chestnut oaks have large leaves with coarsely toothed
Speaker 1: or wavy margins. Now there are several kinds of white
Speaker 1: oaks and several chestnut oaks, but only one of each
Speaker 1: is called white oak or chestnut oak. The white oak,
Speaker 1: which has received the name, has a rough acorn cup
Speaker 1: somewhat shorter than the acorn. It is at its best
Speaker 1: in the Alleghany Mountains. The mossy cup white oak has
Speaker 1: a fringed and scaly cup which nearly covers the acorn.
Speaker 1: It is more abundant in the prairie region east of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River. It is also known as the bur oak,
Speaker 1: are overcup oak. The chestnut oak, which receives the name,
Speaker 1: has leaves somewhat like the chestnut, but the teeth are
Speaker 1: not pointed. Its acorns are born on a stem shorter
Speaker 1: than the leaf stem are petiole. The swamp white oak
Speaker 1: is classed with the chestnut oaks because their leaves are
Speaker 1: like those of the other chestnut oaks near the tip.
Speaker 1: They are, however, like the white oaks in being lobed
Speaker 1: near the base. The acorns are born on the stems
Speaker 1: longer than the leaf stems. The leaves of the live
Speaker 1: oak are not deciduous. They are thick and heavy, and
Speaker 1: the acorn cups taper to the peticolar stem. The Southern
Speaker 1: live oak is a tree highly valued for its timber.
Speaker 1: The cups nearly cover the acorns. The California live oak
Speaker 1: has long, slender nuts several times as long as the cups.
Speaker 1: The wood is brittle. If you should have an acorn
Speaker 1: with a bitter kernel, it is probably a red oak,
Speaker 1: a black oak, or a willow oak. Red oaks have
Speaker 1: a reddish wood. Their leaves are often deeply cut, with
Speaker 1: the lobes tipped with bristles. They turn brilliant red in autumn.
Speaker 1: The red oak has a shallow acorn cup and the
Speaker 1: leaves turn orange red in autumn. The scarlet oak has
Speaker 1: very ragged leaves scarlet and autumn. The acorn cup is
Speaker 1: top shaped and rather deep. The kernel is white and bitter.
Speaker 1: The bark is gray without red within The black oak
Speaker 1: is quite like the scarlet oak in many ways, but
Speaker 1: the bark is dark and rough and has an orange,
Speaker 1: yewed lining. This oak is valuable for the tannin, which
Speaker 1: is used in the manufacture of leather. The willow oaks
Speaker 1: have simple leaves like those of a willow, but very tough.
Speaker 1: The acorns are round like a ball end of Chapter
Speaker 1: six