Red Oak mystery

[olddogrib]

Took the grandson sledding today at a nearby park and this tree caught my eye.  It appears to be an immature red oak or at least in that family from the pointed lobes of the leaves. What struck me is that it doesn't appear to have dropped any leaves.  I've seen beech trees carry this much foliage into the dead of winter, but never oaks.  Talk about good break-up cover for a tree stand! What gives here?  I apologize that it's a stretch to tie this to trad, but deer will eat the acorns if there's nothing better on the menu.


   

its a pin oak , they dont like to give up there leaves.

[Pat B]

The red oaks around here hold some of their leaves well into the winter, beeches even longer, almost until spring.
  On trees like the beechs the leaves are held on the "juvinile" wood(meaning some of the first wood produced on the tree) and it is this area where the best propagation wood comes from when doing hardwood cuttings or grafting.

[Mudd]

The leaf reminds me of a Pin Oak.

I also looked it up in my book and am even more certain that it is in fact a Pin Oak.

Check the acorn,they have vertical stripes with light brown alternating with greenish browns on fresh acorns. The acorn is nearly hemispherical in shape and are enclosed at the base in a shallow cup.

God bless,Mudd

[TSHOOTER]

Agree with arrow30

[doug77]

pin oak

[olddogrib]

Thanks for the help, guys.  I thought the bark also looked too light/smooth for a red oak, but couldn't come up with a better theory.  My Audubon tree field guide agrees with your concensus.  Folks around here tend to mistakenly refer to willow oaks as pin oaks, but I believe this is the "real McCoy". Willow oaks have tiny acorns and those horrendous short, slender leaves that are nearly impossible to rake in the fall.  The reason this tree caught my eye is that just to the right of my hand is about 300 yds of open space (2 baseball fields and 1 soccer field) where a small herd of deer crossed in the night. This park is miles inside the city limits and one set of tracks looked like a nice buck, i.e impressive length and pronounced dew claws. From the sign it looked like he was possibly trying to "carve out" an unbred doe from the rest, although I'd think it was getting pretty late for even a secondary rut.  City deer probably don't know any better!