''Quercus nigra'', the water oak, is an oak in the red oak group (''Quercus'' sect. ''Lobatae''), native to the eastern and south-central

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, found in all the coastal states from

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, and inland as far as

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, and southern

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. It occurs in lowlands and up to in elevation. Other names include spotted oak, duck oak, punk oak, orange oak, and possum oak.

Description

''Quercus nigra'' is a medium-sized

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

, growing up to tall with a trunk up to in diameter. Young trees have a smooth, brown bark that becomes gray-black with rough scaly ridges as the tree matures. The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are alternate, simple and tardily

, remaining on the tree until mid-winter; they are long and broad, variable in shape, most commonly shaped like a spatula being broad and rounded at the top and narrow and wedged at the base. The margins vary, usually being smooth to shallowly lobed, with a bristle at the apex and lobe tips. The tree is easy to identify by the leaves, which have a lobe that looks as if a drop of water is hanging from the end of the leaf. The top of each leaf is a dull green to bluish green and the bottom is a paler bluish-green. On the bottom portion of the leaves, rusty colored hairs run along the veins. The

acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

s are arranged singly or in pairs, long and broad, with a shallow cupule; they mature about 18 months after pollination in autumn of the second year.

Ecology

Water oak serves the same ecological role as weeping willow and other wetland trees. It is adapted to wet,

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

y areas, such as along

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

s and stream banks, but can also tolerate well-drained sites and even heavy, compacted soils. It grows in sandy soils, red clays, and old fields to the borders of

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s, to bottomlands. Due to its ability to grow and reproduce quickly, the water oak is often the most abundant species in a stand of trees. The tree is relatively short-lived compared to other oaks and may live only 60 to 80 years. It does not compete well and does not tolerate even light shade. Water oak is frequently used to restore bottomland hardwood forests on land that was previously cleared for agriculture or pine plantations. Minimum age for flowering and fruiting is 20 years and the tree produces heavy crops of acorns nearly every year. Water oak is not recommended as an ornamental due to being short-lived, disease-prone, and extremely messy. Hybrids of water oak are known with southern red oak ('' Quercus falcata''), bluejack oak ('' Quercus incana''), turkey oak ('' Quercus laevis''), blackjack oak ('' Quercus marilandica''), willow oak ('' Quercus phellos''), Shumard oak ('' Quercus shumardii''), and black oak ('' Quercus velutina''). Water oak acorns are an important food for

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

, eastern gray squirrel,

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...

wild turkey The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of Turkey (bird), turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey (''M. g. dom ...

, mallard,

wood duck The wood duck or Carolina duck (''Aix sponsa'') is a partially migratory species of perching duck found in North America. The male is one of the most colorful North American waterfowls. Taxonomy The wood duck was Species description, formal ...

, and

bobwhite quail The northern bobwhite (''Colinus virginianus''), also known as the Virginia quail or (in its home range) bobwhite quail, is a ground-dwelling bird native to Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Cuba, with introduced populations elsewhere in th ...

. In winter, deer will browse the buds and young twigs.

Uses

Water oak has been used for timber and for

fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

by people in the southern states since the 17th century.

References

External links

* C. Michael Hogan (ed.)(2011)
"''Quercus nigra''
''Encyclopedia of Life''. Contributor Missouri Botanical Gardens
United States Department of Agriculture, National Forest Service
*
photo of herbarium specimen at Missouri Botanical Garden, collected in Missouri in 1948
{{Taxonbar, from=Q4112855 nigra Flora of the Eastern United States Trees of Northern America Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Plant dyes