On 23 Jul 2006 08:51:50 -0700, "McGerm" wrote:

Last fall I collected some acorns from under a Willow Oak on the
PSU-Hershey Med Center Campus. Four of them started to grow, only one
looks right for a Willow oak.
http://home.earthlink.net/~mkmolchan/07-23-06_1122.jpg. (The one on
the left.) All of the acorns originally appeared to be from the same
tree. There were other red oaks (others from the group with spines on
the leaf tip) Can I have some hybrids in my group of four?

Can I plant these out into the yard now here in PA if I keep them well
watered? If not now, when?

Jim

PS I fell in love with the Willow Oaks at Mt. Vernon when I visited,
but was told they were a southern tree. I later found out that some
can grow up north if they were adapted, but found no nursery that had
them. When I saw the trees in 2002 at Hershey Med I kept watching them
for acorns.
Hybrids? Possibly. Are these all willow oaks? possibly. though I
don't think so. For hybridization, you would probably be talking
about two red oaks or two white oaks (the broad families, not the
species with those common names). I doubt a white oak would cross
with a red. But all this is the realm of someone more botanist than
arborist, and that ain't me.

Oaks have a tendency to look like some other oak when this young. but
you seem to have three distinct species here, whether hybrid or not.
Just guessing, I'd say chinkapin, (maybe willow), shumard, shumard,
looking at your photo left to right. But, again, they may look quite
different as they get older.

Did the acorns all look alike? Generally, a shumard's acorns will all
look a lot like each other and not much like, say, a chinkapin's. So
if the acorns were similar, there's a better chance they are the same
species showing different characteristics. The range of differences
will vary, too, so maybe the acorns looked alike but were still not
from the same tree.

Sorry not to offer a more definitive answer. To sum up, wait and see.

Keith Babberney
ISA Certified Arborist #TX-0236AT