Help: humongous leaves!

[Charles Delwiche]

In article <16390 at umd5.umd.edu> bwilliam at oyster.smcm.edu (Bill Williams) writes:
>A twelve-year-old kid in our neighborhood (southern Maryland, USA)
>recently found an oak leaf
>(Quercus velutina, I think) about four times larger than any I've
>previously seen -- it's about 35 cm long by 30 cm broad. He and some
>neighbors are very excited about this find and have called the local
>newspaper (it's a small town) and asked the local botanist - me - for
>some sort of explanation.  I haven't the slightest clue. 


Shade leaf??  They can get to be quite large, although 35x30 cm seems
excessive.  If it is a shade leaf it should be quite thin, and there
would be anatomical differences as well (sorry, I forget the details).
Unfortunately, being autumn you probably don't have the option of
measuring chlorphyll a/b ratios.

Does it look developmentally normal apart from its size?  Is the
veination normal?

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Charles F. Delwiche			(812) 855-2549
Dept. of Biology, Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405