Boardman Park is fortunate to have several very large magnificent Northern Red Oaks grace its landscape. Four of these Oaks can be seen along the North Trail. These beauties are most likely a couple of hundred years old. The stately Oaks, along with all the other trees, are the foundation of the park’s beautiful landscape.
      “I can’t imagine the Green Oasis without trees,” says the park’s executive director, Dan Slagle.
      The Northern Red Oak trees have many uses, and they are quite beneficial to both humans and animals. The tree provides shelter for nesting for mammals and birds. Many birds, rabbits, deer, squirrels as well as insects feed on the leaves, seedlings, and acorns of the tree.
      Environmentally, these Oaks sequester carbon in their mass as they grow. The Oaks convert large quantities of carbon dioxide to various organic compounds that make up wood. Oak trees therefore provide a means for helping to offset the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels related to the use of fossil fuels.
      Oak canopies also mitigate the effects of global warming by reducing ground surface temperatures.
      “On a hot summer day at the Green Oasis you can find a nice cool spot to relax and picnic under of one our oaks Trees.” Slagle says, adding “ They also improve air quality by storing carbon dioxide and exhaling oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. The leaves of an oak tree absorb airborne pollutants. It has been observed that one tree can absorb up to 10 lbs. of air pollution in a single year.”
      Oaks reduce water pollution by absorbing fertilizer nutrients, pesticides and other trace contaminants in soil, allowing compounds to break down slowly and be taken up as nutrients. Just one of these large oak trees will intercept and mitigate 7,000 gallons of stormwater each year, which helps slow the eroding energy of rain by intercepting rainwater on leaves and stems surfaces during storms.
      Identifying Features
      Leaves of Red Oak are alternate, moderately shiny, broadly obovate, with seven to eleven lobes that have bristles terminating each tooth on the forward-pointing lobes. Red Oak often has impressive late fall color, ranging from brick red to scarlet, although some trees may have golden- yellow, yellow-brown, or chartreuse foliage in autumn.
      The Flower of Red Oak is monoecious (both male and female flowers on the same tree), having pendulous pollen-bearing catkins in mid-spring that are the ‘showy’ golden-brown flowers seen from a distance.
      Fruit of the Oak is an acorn, which results from the miniature female flowers that take two years to develop into mature acorns. As such, they are not obvious until the second year, when they fill out rapidly during the summer and ripen.
      The bark of the immature Red Oak is light gray, very reflective in the winter sun, and surprisingly smooth. As the bark matures, it develops shiny gray flattened ridges that have intervening darker fissures. Only on very aged specimens lowermost portion of the trunk will have deep furrows and tall ridges with a dark gray to near-black color.
      This article is one of several stories
      The Boardman News will provide this year
      as Boardman Park observes its
      75th anniversary.