Feast Your Eyes On This Exotic

It's origins are not from a far off land. This seedling is perhaps one of Florida's
most abundant and redundant source of trees. A tree sometimes loathed and
cursed for various reasons. In this case, the fact that it sprouted up at the edge
of this grassy area. Most likely and credited to an obsessive compulsive acorn
baring squirrel.

What makes this an exotic you ask? First off all, it is a first that I have ever seen.
So that in it self makes it an exotic in my small world of a backyard gardener.
It always surprises me to find another weed of a different nature in someone
else's yard from what I have in my yard.

I've done some lite digging on the internet.to no avail. What we have is a
common Laurel oak seedling with variegated leaves. It's too early to tell
whether this variegation will continue through it's stages of growth, let
alone survive. Along with the risk of possible human tampering that I
may subject this seedling to in the name of preservation. Such as moving
it to a potted culture, which would give it the needed attention that
could prove successful.

I don't pretend to know how this sport materialized. Whether from a latent gene
or even a possible virus. Had it been successful in the past we would
possibly have seen these at our plant nurseries, which make me feel that it
may not live long. I will be one of the first to say that I am not to fond of
variegated plants. My first impression having seen this about a month ago
was , what is wrong with this. Looks sickly and had to examine this to make
sure that it was not infested. Having ruled that out turned it wonder, then
fascination and now curiosity. We've all heard where curiosity could lead to.