Found some cool live oak in the neighborhood
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@Silva_Naturalis With Japan, I get the impression that however long you spent there or however often you were able to go, there would always be so many more things to see – multiplied by the different seasons. 
Main thing is you got to go and hone your eye on some world-class Japanese bonsai too, I assume. 
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Some inspirational ponderosa and pinyon pines from a family hike yesterday (humans for scale, though a couple of them are very small). Hoping you can all get a little nature in your lives right now, even if in photos.
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Nice photos Brad. I have a pinyon pine in development and your pictures gave me some inspiration, thanks!!
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Awesome how this thread is growing. 
Keep them coming. There are a couple more trees in my area that I will share here, but I need to take some decent pictures first.
Wow! Is this twisty one in the second pic from near the shrine in Ōmiya Park? I think I recognise it from my recent trip there 
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Hi @XeSaad welcome to the forum. Yes, that’s the one – it’s from Omiya Park. Not sure what species it is though. Any ideas?
Thanks @Ralph! I took a pic of the sign next to the tree when I was there, and plugged it into Google translate. It seems to be a red birch - here is what Google translate gave me:
“The red birch is a deciduous tree with a height of 10-5m distributed from southern Hokkaido to Kyushu and the Korean Peninsula. It grows from lowland to hilly vegetation, and its bark is gray-white and smooth, but its trunk does not grow evenly, so it has a convexity and thick veins come and go as old trees grow. The origin of the name is that the spike hanging is similar to the paper hanging on the inscription line, and the sprout is red. It is used for floor pillars, furniture, etc. In the bonsai world, it is also known as a solo with the dog hornbeam The age of the red hornbeam tree is uncertain, but it is estimated that it is over a hundred years old, and it has been one of the trees that has been watching the history since the opening of Omiya Park.”
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That’s great! I had a photo of the sign but it was from more of a distance and an angle so Google translate wasn’t able to do anything with it. Thanks for this @XeSaad. Interesting how it says “Red birch” in the opening sentence of translation, but says “Red hornbeam” further down. To me, it looks nothing like birch but I could believe this is a type of hornbeam. It has similar characteristics to Carpinus coreana.
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There’s a very mature birch, Betula ermani, at Westonbirt aboritum that has a deeply fissured trunk, and I’m sure I’ve seen other funky trunk textures on old birch, but this ones certainly unusual.
https://images.app.goo.gl/TsMYsXCjjEtTzxbx9
Perhaps Betula albosinensis does this when very mature?
However I think @Ralph is onto something, this could be Carpinus laxiflora.
You can see some reticulated texture on some of the bonsai trunks of this species… maybe given 100 years you could see similar texture on these!?
https://images.app.goo.gl/z7LoTo4z7HjfSNWF8
https://images.app.goo.gl/BMF5989fR5HFXaNo9
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Beautiful Birch @Silva_Naturalis. I’ve fond memories of Westonbirt arboretum. I grew up NE Bristol area, about 30 min away from Westonbirt. Definitely seen old birches having the fissured “veins” too. Check this one in Essex (not my photo).
But despite that, the smooth pale bark of this mystery tree in Omiya Park just doesn’t seem very birch-esque. Carpinus laxiflora seem possible. Here’s another snap I took of the trunk, in addition to the one in the original post.
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Fairly sure that’s C. laxiflora looking at the bark texture, I’ll check out a few specimens I know and see if I can get a reference photo when the lockdown is relieved finally.
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Thanks, although no need @Silva_Naturalis it is Carpinus laxiflora, case solved. 
I was looking in a bit more detail at the photograph of the sign which @XeSaad posted. The largest text on the right side (reading right-to-left) would be the title, so I looked for that.
It translates to Akashide (red hornbeam). The confusion of “red birch” in the auto-translate was because the text is talking about the birch family, of which Carpinus is in.
Also, here’s an excerpt from Classic Bonsai of Japan book:
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Guys. I went on a walk in the park near my condo, and I saw a really cool, all natural gin on a tree.
okay. seriously. Hope everyone is doing well out there. Best-
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If you look, there is a very bored face below the stub…
I’ve been trying to locate the image files to post here, but can’t. However here’s an old blog post I wrote about the ancient Tortworth Chestnut (Castenea setiva).
The final picture on the blog post is also a chestnut, not an Oak as described
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