Plant: Pin Oak Tree

Plant description

Pin oak is a fast growing native shade tree, pyramidal when young and becoming rounded and oval with age, reaching 50 to 70 feet tall and 40 to 60 feet wide. The 5 inch glossy dark green leaves have five bristle tipped lobes with U shaped sinuses and turn orange, bronze and red in fall, and drooping yellow green catkins appear in March and April before quarter to half inch round acorns ripen in October and November. It takes full sun to partial shade in a moist, well drained acid soil and tolerates wet sites, heat and pollution, but develops iron chlorosis in alkaline soils. It hosts Imperial moth larvae and several butterflies, and its acorns feed birds and mammals.

Flowers

Male pollen flowers are pendulous, drooping, elongated catkins in March and April.

Foliage

The 5 inch glossy green leaves have five bristle tipped lobes and U shaped sinuses.

Fruit

Quarter to half inch acorns are round and short stalked, ripening in October and November.

Bark & stems

Bark is smooth and reddish to grayish brown when young, darkening with shallow fissures; stems are smooth, slender and reddish brown.

Native range

South Ontario to North Central and Eastern U.S.A.

Plant details