I collected acorns in the fall for the heck of it, and planted them
inside after I chilled them in the fridge for a bit. I tried to ID the
acorns after I got them home. The ones with fuzzy internal acorn caps
I sorted as red oaks, and the smooth ones I put in the white oak pile.
I then looked at the shapes and decided to move a couple to the
opposite pile. By the time they were chilled and ready to plant the
white oak ones had sprouted. That confirms that I sorted them
correctly. The red oak ones have yet to sprout even after 3 months in
pots.

This past weekend I went back to the hills where I collected them. I
remember the trees from were I took the acorns. The one in an open
area where I got the white oak acorns appeared to be a Chestnut oak Q.
prinus, or a close hybrid from the leaves still on some of the
branches. There were many acorns sprouting around this tree. The area
where I got the red oak acorns had several large trees in a bit of a
grove. These trees had no leaves attached that I could see very well.
I went around and looked at the ground. The dry leaves in this area
looked like black oak. The acorns still on the ground were all
obviously from the red oak group, but they looked like a mixture of
red, black, or pin oak. I took some with me to the library later in
the day, and the best I could tell was the range of acorns I collected
fit the appearance of red oaks in general, and some more or less like a
particular species or other.

Still my key question is should I plant the white oaks out this spring
or wait? And my second question is how much longer should I wait before
throwing away the red oaks?

Jim
USDA Zone 6b/7a
Sunset Zone 34, for whatever it matters