During the rainy seasons, this is useful for the small amount of surface area will dry quicker. During the warm summer, the needles collectively catch the fog to bring in moisture, and the small surface area means that heat is dissipated more efficiently. In addition, the needles work together to obtain minerals that get trapped from atmospheric gases. The oak tree is a ring porous hardwood while maple is a diffuse porous hardwood. Since they are hardwoods, both trees have vessels.
Vessels conduct water in the xylem.
The advantage of ring porous hardwoods is that massive amounts of water are moved at once, while in diffuse porous, there s constantly a little coming in. This is efficiency versus safety. It is efficient to have a large amount of water coming in through the ring porous system, but at the same time it is slightly hazardous in winter. If the water freezes in the large vessels, big air bubbles will form, and the system will be useless. So, it would make more sense for oaks to develop leaves a little later in the season because the vessels being made that year are the priority.