What Is The State Tree of Iowa ?
Bur Oak is the state tree of Iowa. The scientific name of the Iowa’s state tree Bur Oak is Quercus macrocarpa. Quercus is the genus of the Bur Oak and Q. macrocarpa is its species. It is commonly known as bur oak or burr oak. It is also called mossycup oak and mossycup white oak. It belongs from the beech family of Fagaceae. Bur oak is native to North America in the eastern and central United States, eastern and central Canada. It is also widespread in the Atlantic coastal plain from New Brunswick to North Carolina, west as far as Alberta, eastern Montana, Wyoming, and northeastern New Mexico. The enormous majority of the inhabitants are found in the eastern Great Plains, the Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio Valley, and the Great Lakes region.
On March 13, 1961, the General Assembly of Iowa adopted the Bur Oak or Quercus macrocarpa as the official state tree of Iowa.
It is not only the state tree of Iowa 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 Iowa’s State Tree [Bur Oak]
- Common Name: Bur oak or burr oak. It is also called mossycup oak and mossycup white oak
- Genus: Quercus
- Species: Quercus macrocarpa
- Found in: It is found all through the Iowa, also native of North America, northeastern United States and southeast Canada.
- Flower Color: Male flowers are green and female flowers are reddish
- Time of blooming: April to May.
- Twig: Rather heavy, yellow-brown in color, with stopper edge. Numerous fatal buds are small, round, and may be somewhat juvenile. Small, horny stipules are usually present. Laterals are alike, but slighter.
Bark Ashy gray to brown in color and quite scaly, but noticeably ridged vertically. - Leaf: Rotate, easy, 6 to 12 inches lengthy, roughly Egg-shaped and flat, with numerous lobes. The two middle sinuses nearly reach the midrib. The lobes near the tip look like a crown.
- 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 Iowa’s state tree Bur Oak is a deciduous tree, which grow 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 Bur 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 red 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 a affluent red color in midsummer and early autumn, though this is not true of all red oaks. The flowers of Red 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 Iowa’s state tree Red 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. Red 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 Iowa’s state tree Red 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, Red Oak is the state tree of Iowa 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 Iowa.
