[4] Red oak belongs to the black oak group. Other species usually listed as black oaks are Pin oak (_Quercus palustris_), Georgia oak (_Quercus georgiana_), Texan red oak (_Quercus texana_), Scarlet oak (_Quercus coccinea_), Yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_), California black oak (_Quercus californica_), Turkey oak (_Quercus catesbæi_), Spanish oak (_Quercus digitata_), Black Jack oak (_Quercus marilandica_), Water oak (_Quercus nigra_), Willow oak (_Quercus phellos_), Laurel oak (_Quercus laurifolia_), Blue Jack oak (_Quercus brevifolia_), Shingle oak (_Quercus imbricaria_), Whiteleaf oak (_Quercus hypoleuca_), Highland oak (_Quercus wislizeni_), Myrtle oak (_Quercus myrtifolia_), California live oak (_Quercus agrifolia_--sometimes classed with white oaks), Canyon live oak (_Quercus chrysolepis_), an evergreen oak with no English name, (_Quercus tomentella_), Price oak (_Quercus pricei_), Morehus oak (_Quercus morehus_), Tanbark oak (_Quercus densiflora_), Barren oak (_Quercus pumila_). When a lumberman speaks of red oak he may mean any one of a good many kinds of trees, but when a botanist or forester uses that name he means one particular species and no other. For that reason there is much uncertainty as to what species is in the lumberman’s mind when he speaks of red oak. It means more to him than a single species, depending to a considerable extent upon the part of the country where he is doing business. If he is in the Gulf states, and has in mind a tree which grows there, he does not refer to the tree known to botanists as red oak. He may mean the Texan or southern red oak (_Quercus texana_), or the willow oak (_Quercus phellos_), or the yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_), or any one of several others which grow in that region; but the typical red oak does not grow farther south than the mountains of northern Georgia; and any one who is cutting oak south or southwest of there, is cutting other than the true red oak. That does not imply that he is handling something inferior, for very fine oak grows there; but in an effort to separate the commercial black oaks into respective species, it is necessary to define them by metes and bounds of ranges as well as to describe them by characteristics of leaves, acorns, and wood. The time will probably never come in this country when the sawmill man will pile each species of oak separately in his yard, and sell separately; but the tendency is in that direction. The twenty-five or more black oaks in this country all have some characteristics in common; but they are by no means all valuable alike, or all useful for the same purposes. For that reason, the demands of trade require, and will require more and more as higher utilization is reached, that certain kinds of red oak or black oak be sold separately.