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ken_adrian

how many types of oaks are there????

seriously.. at least one a week.. i find some reference to an oak i never heard of ...

is there any definitive answer???

ken

ps: cherry bark.. whats that all about..lol ...

Comments (9)

  • arktrees
    12 years ago

    Ken,
    Wiki says about 600 species. Major problem is that they hybridize so freely, it gets hard to separate many of them, and in some cases as in Cherry Bark Oak, some consider it a valid species, others a subspecies. Similar to the circumstance with Sugar Maple. Big-Toothed Maple, Black Maple, Chalk, Sugar Maple, Southern Sugar Maple, and Black Maple are all closely related. Some consider them each a subspecies of Sugar Maple, other consider them separate and valid species. Such is the way of science, lots of argument, and everyone trying to prove THEY are right, until someone is accepted as being correct.

    One thing to realize the classification into species is purely our own desire to categorize and manipulate everything. It's completely artificial, and nature could care less, not to mention that everything is in some amount of flux at all times. Plus there are undoubtedly more that science does not know about at this time.

    This is probable more than you want to know, and I didn't even touch on the concept of "Super-Species" that is taking hold in some circles.

    Arktrees

    Here is a link that might be useful: Oaks

  • tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
    12 years ago

    Well, if you go by common names, there must be scads of them. Acorny answer, I know. ;-)

    tj

    P.S. Wiki says about 600 species.

  • j0nd03
    12 years ago

    Credit to esh_ga for sharing this with me in another topic.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Native Oak list

  • alexander3_gw
    12 years ago

    >One thing to realize the classification into species is purely our own desire to
    >categorize and manipulate everything. It's completely artificial, and nature
    >could care less

    I have to disagree with this statement. There are several "species" definitions about, and none of them are perfect for all organisms, but the concept of "species" is a useful and meaningful.

    Categorizing bacteria at the level of species is especially problematic, but for plants and animals it is fairly straightforward in most cases, and reflects a natural reality: there are populations of organisms that breed among themselves and not with others. As it happens, oaks are notorious for hybridizing, and yet, they don't meld into one group where they overlap. So even though in many cases the reproductive isolation between species is not absolute, to say that the idea is completely artificial is an oversimplification in the other direction.

    Alex

  • jqpublic
    12 years ago

    I believe the Cherrybark oak is pretty similar to the Southern Red Oak, but doesn't have much fall color.

    Here is a link that might be useful: quercus falcata

  • arktrees
    12 years ago

    Not going to belabor the point with Alex, we will just have to disagree. A classification system is useful, and very much a man made creation. That is one of the first things they teach you in taxonomy classes. It's only an approximation of nature, in an attempt to understand nature, and does not truly reflect nature. Hence new concepts are still being created to understand nature.

    In the end, the Oaks are what they are, and we are just trying to cope and understand.

    Arktrees

  • brandon7 TN_zone7
    12 years ago

    I agree with Ark about the meaning of species, and especially when it comes to oaks. When we talk of species, we are only approximating reality.

  • dricha
    12 years ago

    Go to efloras.com Check out volume 3. All the oaks in the U.S. are listed there. The center for oak diversity is Mexico which has aroun 150 sp. In Asia, China has about the same as Mexico. They are still finding new species so you can only guess as to the exact number. Texas has about 53 species, the most in the U.S.

  • jqpublic
    12 years ago

    wow that eflora's website is amazing. thanks for sharing. FYI it's efloras.org