What Is The State Tree of District of Columbia?

Scarlet Oak or Northern Scarlet Oak is the state tree of District of Columbia. The scientific name of the District of Columbia’s state tree Scarlet Oak is Quercus coccinea. Quercus is the genus of the Scarlet Oak and Q. coccinea is its species. It is commonly known as Black oak, Red oak, Spanish oak, spotted oak. It belongs from the beech family of Fagaceae.

It is mostly native to the range of eastern United States, from southern Maine west to eastern Oklahoma, and south to southern Alabama. It is also inhabitant in the extreme south of Ontario, Canada. When a state body selects a symbol for the state it should represent extra ordinary design, quality, expression cultural, traditional and religious back ground, which go back thousands of years for its popularities. On basis of the facts that stated above, the Georgian General Assembly has been adopted the Scarlet Oak tree as the official state tree of District of Columbia on November 8, 1960.

It is not only the state tree of District of Columbia but also state and national tree of many other countries and states with variant of species, like as State tree of Iowa (Bur Oak), Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut (White Oak) and national tree of Germany, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, USA (Oak), Croatia, Estonia (Pedunculate Oak), Cyprus (Golden Oak), Portugal (Coral Oak), United Kingdom (Royal Oak).

Facts about District of Columbia’s State Tree [Scarlet Oak]

Common Name: Scarlet Oak, Northern Scarlet Oak, Champion Oak, common Scarlet Oak, eastern Scarlet Oak, mountain Scarlet Oak, and gray oak,
Genus: Quercus
Species: Quercus coccinea
Found in: It is found all through the District of Columbia, also native of North America, northeastern United States and southeast Canada.
Flower Color: Male flowers are pale yellow-green and female flowers are reddish
Time of blooming: April to May.
Twig: Pretty stout, red-brown and glabrous. Fatal buds are numerous, rather large, ovoid, and enclosed with red-brown, frequently bald scales.
Bark: On immature stems are smooth and in maturity the bark develops wide, flat-topped edges and shallow grooves
Leaf: Rotate, seven to nine-lobed, oblong-oval to oblong in shape, five to ten inches length, four to six inches wide; seven to eleven lobes.
Fruit: Acorns (fruits of the Oak tree) are in bunch of 3 to 5, which are maturing in a season.
Type: Deciduous
Purpose: Fragrant, ornamental.
Symbolism: Sovereignty, power, Strength & Endurance, Generosity & Protection, Justice, Nobility,

Honesty & Bravery
The District of Columbia’s state tree Scarlet Oak is a medium large deciduous tree grows straight and tall, generally can be height to 28 m (92 ft), unusually to 43 m (141 ft) tall, with a trunk of up to 50–100 cm (20–39 in) diameter. Open-grown trees do not get as tall, but can expand a stouter stem, up to 2 m (6.6 ft) in diameter. It has stout twigs emergent at right angles to the stem, forming a thin round-topped head. It produces swiftly and is lenient of several soils and varied circumstances, even though it chooses the glacial float and well-drained edges of watercourses. It is often a part of the awning in an oak-heath forest, but usually not as significant as some other oaks.

The leaves of Scarlet Oak are rotate, plain, hairless, and oblong to oval in shape five to ten inches long, four to six inches broad; seven to eleven lobes tightening steadily from wide bases, acute, and terminate with long bristle-pointed teeth; the second pair of lobes from peak is largest; midrib and principal veins are noticeable. Lobes are less deeply cut than most other oaks of the Scarlet Oak group Leaves appear from the sprout convolute, pink, covered with soft silky down above, coated with thick white tomentum below. When full grown are dark green and smooth, on occasion shining above, yellow green, soft or hairy on the axils of the veins below. In autumn they revolve a rich red, occasionally brown.

Frequently the petiole and mid vein are an affluent red color in midsummer and early autumn, though this is not true of all Scarlet Oaks. The flowers of Scarlet Oak are appears with the leaves, through exposed catkins, 2 to 4 inches long. Male flowers are green Female flowers are reddish and emerge as single spikes.

The District of Columbia’s state tree Scarlet Oak has strong astringent properties. Internally as a tea it helps fight diarrhea and dysentery. Externally it can be used to treat hemorrhoids, inflamed gums, wounds, and eczema. It has also been used as American folk medicine. Scarlet Oak trees have lot of magical/magickal properties, some of which are: (a) Dreaming of resting under an oak tree means have a long life and wealth. (b) Climbing the tree in dream means a relative will have a hard time of it in the near future. (c) Dreaming of a fallen oak is means the loss of love.

The District of Columbia’s state tree Scarlet Oak as the King of Trees has been sacred to the various European Gods including Zeus, Jupiter, Thor and Jumala. Pliny wrote about the Druids reverence just before this tree, illumination that they assembled for ceremony in Oak orchards, congregation the sacred mistletoe with a golden sickle. Likewise the Galatian peoples held gathering in oak sanctuary. The fruits of Oak which called acorns also have symbolic importance that it used as a divinatory system. Combining all this, the Oak can represent community, religious virtue and foresight.
To sum up, Scarlet Oak is the state tree of District of Columbia that symbolizes Sovereignty, power, Strength & Endurance, Generosity & Protection, Justice, Nobility, Honesty & Bravery and also the spirit of the state that makes it as the state tree of District of Columbia.

Ref:

http://www.ereferencedesk.com/resources/state-tree/Washington-dc.html

https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/dc/trees/scarlet-oak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_coccinea

www.naturalmedicinalherbs.net/herbs/q/quercus-coccinea=scarlet-oak.php

www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/PlantFinder/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode.