if i had to do it ....

i would get a pot.. and some cactus mix.. and transplant it ASAP ... and get it accustomed to the pot.. before the long drive home.

and then i would put the pot in full shade and not plant it in mother earth.. until the leaves fall off ...

trees do not like regular high peat media... it can hold too much water .. they like a drink and near total drainage ... even to be dry for a day or two .. before wetting again ....

but in a small pot.. dont let the pot get too hot.. nor too dry.. while holding the plant over ... even if you have to stick the pot in the soil.. to temper august heat ...

but dont shock it twice.. by digging it up.. then transporting it .. and then immediately replanting it... wait.. thats three shocks...

and on the drive home.. no stopping for 12 afternoon drinks.. and leaving your pet tree in a closed car on the parking lot... crikey.. traveling with plants is worse than kids.. you just cant leave them in a closed locked car ... lol ...

make sense...??

someone else can ID it for you .. but why not practice regardless...

good luck.. let us know how it works out ...

ken

ps: i was told .. long ago.. its hard to ID oak babes.. as mature leaf form is better for ID ....but it sure does look like a swamper to my untrained eye ....

In SC it's more likely a Swamp Chestnut Oak, Quercus michauxii, which is also a fine tree and would do well in zone 6b NC.

Not bicolor or michauxii; it's a seedling of one of the red oak species - spines on the tips of lobes.

Acer, tiny seedling oaks can be very hard to ID.

Something in sandy, coastal SC might be bear or blackjack oak.

Agree with beng - seedlings are often very difficult to ID, as leaf shape is often nothing at all like that of the mature tree.
My guess would be Q.falcata or Q.pagoda - but at the bottom of the photo, it almost looks like there's also a seedling of Q.nigra growing in close proximity.

Survival would be iffy, at best, but I've uprooted some 1st-year seedlings this late and had 'em make it; they may lose all their leaves, and may even die back to the root collar, but often resprout - they're pretty much programmed to survive!. If you can manage to sneak it out without disturbing its roots too much, you might be able to get away with it.

This post was edited by lucky_p on Thu, Aug 1, 13 at 12:16

Q. nigra

You know, sal, I think you're right. I'm so far removed from The South, where Q.nigra seedlings pop up everywhere, I'd forgotten how 'lobed' seedling leaves on those suckers can be. Certainly those in the lower right corner are unmistably, IMO, Q.nigra.

I am really off track, I thought it was a Burr oak. It looks nothing like Q. Nigra or Water oak leaves on yahoo Images. How can you folks ID it as Water oak?

I see the Water oak leaves in the bottom corner now. My Bicolor don't look like the pictures say they should yet, either.

poaky,
Much of my (and I'm sure other folks' as well) ID 'skills' are based on years of seeing 'em.

I grew up in UCLA (upper corner of lower Alabama) - Q.nigra is the predominant oak species in my old stomping grounds - and seedlings were omnipresent in every flower bed, fenceline, etc. - almost as numerous as Norway & silver maple, boxelder, and ash seedlings are for folks up here in the frigid northland.
Kind of like your comments on james40's blackjack oak ID thread - yeah, mature leaf shape on Q.nigra and Q.marilandica are kind of similar... but you weren't appreciating the difference in size - blackjack leaves are HUGE compared to water oak.
So... to some degree, it's what you're accustomed to looking at; bur oak is only native to a small locality in one county in AL - and before I spent some years in MO, I probably would not have recognized it, even as a mature tree - but it's now my favorite oak.