Description:
The Scarlet Oak is famous for its fine, rich-scarlet autumn colours. It is a rounded deciduous tree with dark green leaves turning brilliant red in the autumn. Scarlet oak is a vigorous tree suitable for large gardens, parks or forest. It prefers position in full sun and most well drained, lime-free soils. It also grows in partial shade. It is a large, fast-growing tree and reaching height of 4-5m and a spread of 3-4m in 8-12 years. In maturity, when several dozen years old it can grow up to 20-25m high. The canopy of young trees is densely conical and becomes rather irregular and slightly looser as the tree becomes older. The bark on the trunk is silvery-grey and smooth when young and later turning dark grey and finely fissured with many nipples. The young branches are orange-brown with the upper side more reddish-brown and lower side more olive-coloured. The buds are pointed and ovoid with dark red brown scales. Leaves of the scarlet oak are 7-17cm long, 8-13cm wide and deeply lobed. They have no hairs and sit on a thin 2.5-3cm long peduncle. Their autumn scarlet colour is very showy and it mostly appears earlier on only one or two branches. Leaves of the Splendens variety are even larger – up to 18x13cm – and their peduncles are also longer 4-6cm. The Splendens variety produces even more intense and shining autumn colours then the original species. The part of leaves remains on the lower tree branches until January. The Scarlet Oak is monoecious. The male flowers appear in hanging catkins. The acorns are oval and only 1-2cm long. They grow in flat cupule. The Scarlet Oak grows best on dry, sandy and acid soils.