Oaks of North America

I draw oak leaves and it is important to me that I identify them correctly. This book tells me everything I need to know. I especially like that he shows more than one example of the leaf, as there are some widely varying differences in leaves of the same type tree. This is now my oak leaf bible.

The book does have an introduction talking about the broad classifications of types of oaks, history of oak usage, historic management of oak forests, etc. But this introduction is short, and then the book gets into the nitty-gritty of identification. Not just red vs. white, but every single documented variant the author found in his extensive research. For all but one of these oaks, the author visited and examined a live specimen himself.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to identify then many species of Oaks in N. America. The layout, photographs and desecriptions are all excellent.

This book is a ton of facts for both the amateur as well as the professional botanist or horticulturalist, and at the same time it is an enjoyable read for the casual reader looking for some information or help with oak id. It is the only book that I have seen that actually helps the reader better understand and thereby learn to id oaks, by letting the reader know what the Latin name really means. Sure solves a lot of mysteries, like why the Quercus velutina is the black oak, not the quercus nigra.