white oak
Quercus alba L.
click thumbnail to enlarge
Form
white oak form
Habitat
Leaves
white oak leaves white oak leaves white oak leaf (underside) white oak leaf (underside)
Twigs
white oak twig with buds white oak twig with buds
Bark
white oak bark
Flowers
white oak: male flowers white oak: male flowers white oak: male flowers white oak: male flowers white oak flowers (male)
Fruit
white oak fruit: immature white oak fruit: immature
  • FAMILY: FAGACEAE
  • ALTERNATE COMMON NAME: stave oak
  • LEAVES: deciduous, alternate, simple; variable but usually around 6” long by 4” wide, blades widest above the middle, with usually 7 to 9 lobes which are blunt or rounded apically and lack bristle tips; upper blade surfaces bright green, lower surfaces often gray or whitish
  • FLOWER: unisexual, plants monoecious; male flowers in catkins, female flowers inconspicuous, solitary or in few flowered spikes
  • FRUIT: shiny tan to brown acorn, 0.6-1.2” inch long, shape oblong, ovoid, or obovoid, cupule bowl-shaped, embracing 1/4(-1/3) of the acorn, scale tips not appressed, giving a rough texture
  • TWIGS: purplish gray to greenish red, young shoots with pinkish stellate pubescence, quickly sloughing; winter buds reddish brown, ovoid-conic to globose, usually vaguely obtusely longitudinally angular, scale margins ciliate, faces of scales sometimes short-pubescent distally
  • BARK: light ashy gray, bark of medium-sized trees broken into vertically aligned plates; that of larger trees irregularly plated or divided into broad flat scaly ridges
  • FORM: medium to large tree, 80-100’ tall and 3-4’ dbh; long-lived
  • HABITAT: mesic to somewhat dry forests, including mixed loblolly pine-hardwood, hardwood slope, mesic hardwood flatwoods, etc.
  • WETLAND DESIGNATION: Facultative Upland (FACU): Usually occurs in non-wetlands, but may occur in wetlands of the Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain Region
  • RANGE: eastern US, barely extending into Ontario and Quebec [USGS Range Map]
  • USES: wood valuable, used for furniture, flooring, important for cooperage; ornamental
  • WILDLIFE: important hard mast tree for various mammals and birds
    • Best Recognition Features:
    1. mesic-sited tree with light gray, loose, platy to shaggy bark
    2. leaf lobes apically blunt-rounded, lacking bristle tips
    3. leaf undersurface commonly glaucous
    LSU School of Renewable Natural Resources

    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

    LSU AgCenter
    Provide Website Feedback   |  Accessibility Statement