Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Sapling?

I’m not the only half-assed gardener in the Back Forty (inches), my little plot of backyard concrete. The wind, the birds, and the squirrels have been known to plant things as well.

In a weeding mind, I over-zealously pulled this out of a pot: Oops, hello, sapling! The seed here looks like a hazelnut or a hickory nut: But that can’t be right because of these leaves, which say “oak” to me: But what kind?

Of course, I may be barking up the wrong sapling entirely. I’ve transplanted it to its own pot, so let’s see what becomes of it.

UPDATE 6/14: We think this is probably a pin oak (Q. palustris). Unfortunately, I returned from a weekend away to find the sapling dethroned from its pot, lying wilted on the ground. The seed was atop of the soil. What happened? It turns out that there’s another growing in a different pot amid some annuals. Stay tuned.

mthew

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7 responses to “Sapling?”

  1. Marielle

    Hi Matthew – Definitely an oak of the “red” inclination. Too hard to tell yet, we’ll have to wait and see! Thanks for the tour of Prospect Park today. As the Victorians would say, “T’was fun!”

    – Marielle

    Reply
  2. Paul

    I’m going to guess a Pinoak.

    Reply
    1. mthew

      Pin oaks certainly are the local type. The street out front is lined with them.

      Reply
      1. mthew

        Paul,

        Just passed a pin oak on the street. It was spouting a few small leaves down on the trunk, and they looked much like these; very different from the narrow, deeply lobed leaves of the mature tree.

  3. Nuts! Acorns « Backyard and Beyond

    […] First, a couple of acorns, which I’d hazard to guess most of us can identify. These two are actually a little atypical.Chestnut oak, Quercus montana. AKA mountain chestnut oak, rock chestnut oak, rock oak, tanbark oak. The shape here is very acorny, but the dark color is a bit unusual. Pin oak, Quercus palustris. If you listen carefully while walking down the street, you can hear these bouncing off of parked cars. Unusually small and flattened, with delicate lines. One sprouted in a pot in the Back 40. […]

    Reply
  4. Pin Oak « Backyard and Beyond

    […] June, I accidently uprooted a pin oak sapling in the Back 40. I was weeding wildly. Once I saw what I had done, I attempted to replant it. A couple of days […]

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  5. Back 40 Pin Oak « Backyard and Beyond

    […] had two of these last year in my Back 40. One I yanked accidently during a weeding frenzy. I replanted it when I saw what I had done, but […]

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