White Oak Tree Leaves

White oak foliage is dense and lush. The leaves form a thick canopy that rustles in the wind in the summer. In the winter, though, the trees become completely bare.

In the springtime, it's easy to tell oak trees from maple trees because the red maples in Sutton have puffy red flowerettes all over them by April. In comparison, at the same time in April the oak trees still look fairly bare. This photos was taken April 21, 2011.

white Oak photo

Oak trees are very tall, so this is the best zoom of my camera trying to see those treetops and what is going on up there.
Then along comes summer and now there is no question at all what is an oak tree. The leaves have all sorts of jagged lobes on them.

Since the oak trees are so tall - and don't have branches down low - the only way I can get leaf images is to wait for them to fall down. You'll see on these images that the leaves are tall and thin, with several lobes - or fingers - on each side of the central vein. On a white oak tree these leaves have smooth, rounded edges.

white Oak photo

In this next photo I'm comparing a red oak leaf with a white oak leaf. The red oak leaf is on the left and has jagged edges. The white oak leaf is on the right and has the rounded edges.

Oak photo