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West Virginia Trees

Chapter 64: SWAMP WHITE OAK
By A. B. Brooks
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Nature/Gardening/Animals

About This Book

A practical field guide to the native and introduced trees of West Virginia, providing keys based mainly on leaves and fruits, concise family and species descriptions, and detailed line drawings for about 101 native species. It organizes trees by botanical families, gives brief flower notes, a glossary of terms, and suggestions for identifying specimens; occasional introduced species and shrubs are noted. The bulletin emphasizes simplicity for non-specialists, offers measurements and habit descriptions for each species, and includes administrative prefatory material. Its aim is to aid lay readers and students in tree identification and to encourage local interest in forestry.

SWAMP WHITE OAK

Quercus bicolor, Willd.

Form.—Height 50-75 feet, diameter 2-3 feet; trunk, in the open, usually short, supporting a broad round-topped crown; in close stands the trunk is longer and well-formed; lower branches usually drooping.

Leaves.—Alternate, simple, 5-7 inches long, 3-5 inches broad, obovate, coarsely sinuate or shallow-lobed, margins thick and firm, smooth and shining above, paler and tomentose beneath.

Flowers.—May, with the leaves; monoecious; the staminate on long drooping catkins; the pistillate few-flowered, borne above on relatively long peduncles.

Fruit.—Matures in autumn after the flowers; acorns on pubescent stems 1-4 inches long; cup deeply saucer-shaped, enclosing about one-third of the nut, which is ¾ to 1¼ inches long, chestnut brown, usually hairy at apex.

Bark.—Rough on trunks with deep furrows and flat-topped and scaly ridges; on branches soon becoming rough, with scales which often curl back at the edges.

Wood.—Heavy, hard, strong, tough, light brown, with thin and hardly distinguishable sapwood.

Range.—Maine, south to Georgia and west to Michigan and Arkansas.

Distribution in West Virginia.—Infrequent. Found in the following localities: Grant County, on Lunice Creek; Hardy, near Moorefield; Pocahontas, near Marlinton; Greenbrier, near White Sulphur Springs; Berkeley, on Back Creek; Randolph, near Huttonsville; Upshur, at Lorentz.

Habitat.—Borders of swamps and low ground along streams.

Notes.—The Swamp White Oak can easily be distinguished from its near relatives; in the winter, by the bark ridges of the small branches and the drooping lower limbs; in the summer and fall by the wavy or sinuate-margined leaves and the long-stemmed acorns. This tree is not considered of much importance in this State.