The only way you can respond to some questions is to take a deep breath, pause, gaze sagely at the questioner, and say, “That is a very good question,” affording you time to scan through everything you know about a topic in order to frame a coherent response.
I used this technique recently when a friend asked, “How do you differentiate one oak tree from another? There are so many kinds, and the leaves and acorns all have different shapes.”
The topic of oak trees is immense and presents a lot to think about on the spur of the moment: size, home region, bark, leaves, acorns, hybrids, regional common names, and some of the information overlaps from species to species.
Oaks (Quercus spp.) belong to the Beech family (Fagaceae), a fact that surprised me when I first heard it in Tree Steward class. About 90 species of oaks are native to the United States, and many have at least three or four common names. Most native oak species grow in the eastern half of the country, and around 27 species a...