Quercus nigra L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Quercus nigra' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-nigra/). Accessed 2024-03-19.

Genus

Common Names

  • Water Oak

Synonyms

  • Q. aquatica Walt.

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

acorn
Fruit of Quercus; a single-seeded nut set in a woody cupule.
apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
appressed
Lying flat against an object.
entire
With an unbroken margin.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Quercus nigra' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-nigra/). Accessed 2024-03-19.

A deciduous tree up to 80 ft high in the wild; young shoots glabrous. Leaves often crowded at the end of short twigs, extremely variable in shape, mostly obovate, tapered at the base and rounded or bluntish at the apex; some, however, are narrow-oblong, like those of Q. phellos, and entire; others have several shallow or deep lobes towards the apex; they vary from 112 to 4 in. long, and from 12 to 2 in. wide, and are of a pale green and glabrous on both surfaces except for tufts of down in the vein-axils beneath; stalk 110 to 14 in. long. Fruits usually solitary; acorn 12 in. broad and long, one-third enclosed in a broad, shallow, short-stalked cup with appressed scales.

Native of the southern United States; in cultivation 1723. It retains its leaves quite fresh until about the New Year. Its affinities are with Q. phellos, which, however, never has the broad, obovate or lobed leaves. In the southern United States it is popular as a shade tree for streets, etc. This oak must not be confounded with the ‘Black Jack oak’ – the Q. nigra of Wangenheim – a very different tree. (See Q. marilandica.)

There is a fine specimen of Q. nigra at Kew by the Isleworth Gate measuring 58 × 614 ft (1968). A tree in the Oak collection, pl. 1874, is 50 × 534 ft (1972). The only other large specimen recorded grows at Pylewell Park, Hants; it measures 52 × 834 ft at 512 ft (1968).

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

specimens: Kew, Isleworth Gate, cut back, 50 × 634 ft (1978) and, in Oak Collection, pl. 1874, 53 × 6 ft (1986); Windsor Great Park, pl. 1937, 54 × 534 ft and 50 × 334 ft (1978).