Louisiana Plant ID | Quercus virginiana (live oak)

FAMILY: FAGACEAE

ALTERNATE COMMON NAME: southern live oak

LEAVES: tardily deciduous, overwintering and falling just before or as new leaves of the season emerge; alternate, simple, blades thick and leathery, variable in size and shape, generally 2-5" long x 0.5-2.0" wide, margins entire or sparsely toothed, flat to revolute

FLOWER: unisexual, plants monoecious, male flowers in green catkins

FRUIT: acorn, ellipsoidal, to 1” long; dark brown; cap turbinate, deep, enclosing 1/3 of acorn

TWIGS: twigs of the season tan to gray, glabrous or pubescent

BARK: gray to black, thick and deeply furrowed, blocky on older trees

FORM: Scrubby (can be rhizomatous) to large tree, depending on site; crowns of open-grown trees spreading; fast growing, most live oaks on the LSU campus were planted in the 1930s. Most live oaks, which only live to ca. 400 years old, are not as old as they look.

HABITAT: in Louisiana, on natural levees (loamy, well-drained), cheniers (sandy ridges), shell mounds; elsewhere on sand dunes and sandy inland areas; maritime hammocks; perhaps a component of longleaf pine savannahs near the coast on mesic sites; live oak often persists following cultivation and may spread in areas outside its natural range

WETLAND DESIGNATION: Facultative Upland (FACU): Usually occurs in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain Region

RANGE: Texas to Florida and the Carolinas; northeastern Mexico [USGS Range Map] [County Range Map]

USES: historically used for structural pieces in the manufacture of wooden ships; currently of limited use, cabinets, furniture, interior trim, flooring, barrels, veneer; hypocotyls (seedling stems) can become swollen and develop into starchy tubers and utilized similarly to potatoes; popular ornamental!

WILDLIFE: fruit eaten by squirrels

Best Recognition Features:

broad, round crown in open areas (when expressing as a tree on good sites)
leaves thick, leathery, often with a few irregular coarse teeth
deep, turbinate acorn cap and ellipsoidal acorn that is dark brown at maturity

School of Renewable Natural Reources	Louisiana Plant Identification and Interactive Virtual Tours Dr. Chris S. Reid, Project Director \| creid4@lsu.edu LSU School of Renewable Natural Resources LSU AgCenter, Baton Rouge, LA © 2003-2020 website problems or broken links: mbowen@agcenter.lsu.edu page revised: 15-Jan-2020 4:11 PM msb	LSU AgCenter
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