Red oak

LISTEN!

Good day to you! I am a red oak. I’m named for the color of my wood. I am one of the largest trees in the forest and I grow up very quickly. By age 10, I can be 18 feet tall!

Can you find one of my acorns? They were used extensively by Native Americans, who dissolved the tannins that caused the acorns to have a bitter taste. They buried my acorns in the mud of a swamp for a year, stored them beneath sand in fresh water, and pounded them into meal.

I must confess that I am weary of being compared to the white oak. How can any tree measure up to the king of the forest?  Even though the settlers found me to be a little difficult, I still provided them with plenty of rough timber for construction, clapboards, and barrels for dry storage. We can’t all be super trees!

How do you split beams from straight grain red oak?