SCRUBBY OAKS

     Though different species, black Jack, scrub and scrub chestnut oaks have several valuable characteristics in common.  These oaks are adapted to living in dry, rocky, barren soil where they forfeit richer soil to receive ample sunlight in habitats where few other trees shade the ground..  They also are early successional trees that colonize repeatedly burned-over or timbered-off, woodland habitats.  They help hold down and stabilize soil against wind and water erosion where few other plants are present to do that essential job.  They produce attractive acorns in those nearly sterile habitats where food for wildlife can be limited.  And they are small trees with contorted, picturesque forms and boughs that make them interesting to experience for themselves.  Their "skeletal" forms are best seen in winter when their foliage is on the ground.

     The rustic acorns of these scrubby oak species are brown when ripe, and each one is seated in a pretty, little, cup-like cap.  Those caps appear beautifully scaled or feathered like overlapping shingles on a roof.  Those lovely caps can be used for attractive, indoor decorations.  But the acorns should stay where they were found to feed wildlife, including deer mice, eastern chipmunks, squirrels, white-tailed deer, black bears, wild turkeys, blue jays, crows, woodpeckers and other kinds of mammals and birds through winter and into early spring.     

     Though these oak species live in similar habitats, they don't all dwell in the same regions of the United States.  Black Jacks are a southern species that inhabit the southeastern states.  Scrub oaks are mostly in the northeastern United States, where they often form thickets of themselves.  And scrub chestnut oaks inhabit much of the eastern United States, where they sometimes overlap with the other two kinds of scrubby oaks.  

     Scrub oaks' thickets are particularly instrumental in providing windbreaks for wildlife during cold, northern winters.  And they provide rich acorns to eat and a camouflaging background for wildlife to become invisible in.  Those thickets provide "all the comforts of home".

     These scrubby oaks are valuable to wildlife, and the barren habitats they live in, where few other plant species can survive.  And these oaks are attractive in their own ways in those poor landscapes.

      

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