Oak, Durand

The Durand Oak is often 60-90 feet high with a tall trunk 2-3 feet in diameter; comparatively small branches, lower horizontal, upper ascending, forming a dense round-topped head. In the bayou region of the South, and on the dry prairies of the East it is a fine, tall irregularly shaped tree, with lumber equal to the best white oak; but west of the central of Texas it decreases in size and becomes an almost evergreen shrub which is worthless except for fuel. There it grows in thickets on sterile bluffs that cross the Mexican border.

The LEAVES are simple, alternate, thin, obovate to elliptic, margin entire, 3-lobed toward the rounded or acute apex or irregularly laterally lobed; the three forms occur on different branches of the same tree, on lower branches usually lobed, dark green, lustrous above, often green and glabrous below, sometimes 6-7 inches long, 3-3 l/2 inches wide; on upper branches mostly white and pubescent or tomentose below, 2 l/2-3 inches long, 1-l l/2 inch wide.

The WINTER BUDS are ovoid, acute, l/4-1/3 inch long, dark chestnut-brown, scales ciliate on the margin.

The FLOWERS are Monoecious; staminate in slender villose aments, 3-4 inches long; pistillate on a short tomentose peduncle, stigma red. Catkins are separate – male and female three fourths to one inch long and fuzzy. Male flowers are rust color and hang from terminal twig growth in early spring. Female flowers bloom singly or in small clusters

The FRUIT are relatively small ACORNS solitary or in pairs; nut ovoid or slightly obovoid, rounded or rarely acute at apex, nearly truncate at base, pale chestnut-brown l/2-2/3 inch long, barely enclosed in the thin shallow cup; mature at end of first season.

The BARK is thin, light gray or nearly white, broken into thin loosely appressed scales and diagnostic. The TWIGS, pale gray-brown, at first covered with fascicled hairs, soon glabrous or puberulous and darker in their second season. The WOOD is very heavy, hard and strong, brittle and in the eastern part of its range used extensively for fine-grade lumber.

Grows well in neutral to acidic deep rich and moist soils, also limestone flats and grasslands of the eastern third of the state. Durand oak will adapt well to a wide range of soil types from sand to clay in a landscape situation