Is this normal oak behavior

[HuskStihl]

I know I'm a tree idiot, and here's another opportunity for me to prove it. I was deciding whether to remove a large sucker from a good sized water oak. Looking closely at the leaves on the sucker

And I'm thinking, "is this thing I've been calling a water oak actually a red oak"

Looked closely at some leaves in the canopy and they look like this


So I'm like "no it's a water oak like I thought."

Now I know that a water oak is in the red oak family, but is it typical to have such different looking leaves in the same tree? I have a lot of pin oaks, and they have very homogenous leaves, as do the live oaks.

 

[treesmith]

Juvenile leaves can often look very different, seen it in Europe and gums are the same

 

[Limbrat]

Hey Husk, I don't think you're a tree idiot, the mature leaves are definitely water oak and tree smith is right, some juvenile leaves are different. I would wager that those leaves in the first pic receive very little direct sunlight. They do look a lot like red oak or black oak. The bark is another way to ID water oaks. It is relatively smooth for a red oak, especially if the tree is growing on good ground, a little rougher in poor soils.

 

[HuskStihl]

Thanks guys. Good info. Wasn't really a "need to know" situation, but I was curious

 

[PJM]

Sucker growth often appears abnormal. Leaves can lose their typical shape and appearance. Futhermore, I have often observed epicormic growth on ash trees lose the opposite branching pattern that is typical of the species.

 

[HuskStihl]

I was wondering if suckers behaved differently, thx

 

[SecondGenMonkey]

I've seen that on hacked water oak a few years back. At first I was thinking some crazy sucker grafted a branch on. My poor little groundie brain almost melted.

sent using logic and reason from a device forged of witchcraft.