Quercus rubra red oak

More than a dozen red oaks are scattered through the grand court of the Science and Engineering Quad, rising from grassy mounds and lawns. They are the dominant trees in a space landscaped almost entirely with deciduous species – redbud, jacaranda, and hybrid locust among them – in contrast to the Inner Quad in which evergreens predominate.

The bristle-tipped lobes of its leaves vary in depth, but red oak usually has the largest and broadest foliage of the similarly leaved oaks on campus, and tends to be more shallowly lobed than California black, scarlet, and certainly pin oak. Among these, it also grows to the most imposing size. Its acorn is stout and squat, sometimes striped, set in a shallow saucer-like cup like a small cloche placed on a dessert tray. The monarch of the red oaks (Quercus section Lobatae), Q. rubra is named for its reddish wood rather than its middling autumn display, which is most often a brown-tinged yellow.

Fine specimens can be seen behind the church: two substantial trees behind Building 60 and another behind 50. Three more grow just south of the fountain before the Bing Wing of Green Library. One south of the former Ginzton Laboratory reportedly gave rise to volunteer seedlings. Additional plantings line the Rains Houses buildings on Running Farm Lane, with others on the Rosse Lane side thath show good red to orange fall foliage.