Oak, White

Quercus alba, the white oak, is one of the pre-eminent hardwoods of eastern North America. It is a long-lived oak of the family Fagaceae, native to eastern North America and found from southern Quebec west to eastern Minnesota and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas. Specimens have been documented to be over 450 years old. Normally not a very tall tree, typically reaching 65–85 feet at maturity, it nonetheless becomes quite massive and its lower branches are apt to extend far out laterally, parallel to the ground. The tallest known white oak is 144 feet tall. It is not unusual for a white oak tree to be as wide as it is tall.

The LEAVES are alternate, 5 to 9 inches long, 3 to 4 inches wide. Obovate or oblong, 7 to 9-lobed, usually 7-lobed with rounded lobes and rounded sinuses; lobes destitute of bristles; sinuses sometimes deep, sometimes shallow. On young trees the leaves are often repand. They come out of the bud conduplicate, are bright red above, pale below, and covered with white tomentum; the red fades quickly and they become silvery greenish white and shiny; when full grown they are thin, bright yellow green, shiny or dull above, pale, glaucous or smooth below; the midrib is stout and yellow, primary veins are conspicuous. In late autumn the leaves turn a deep red and drop, or on young trees remain on the branches throughout the winter. Petioles are short, stout, grooved, and flattened. Stipules are linear and caduceus.

T he FLOWERS appear in May, when leaves are one-third grown. Staminate flowers are borne in hairy aments 2.5 to 3 inches long; the calyx is bright yellow, hairy, 6 to 8-lobed, with lobes shorter than the stamens; anthers are yellow. Pistillate flowers are borne on short peduncles; involucral scales are hairy, reddish; calyx lobes are acute; stigmas are bright red.

The FRUIT are acorns: Annual, sessile or stalked; nut ovoid or oblong, round at the apex, light brown, shining, 0.75 to an 1.0 long; cup-shaped, enclose about 1/4 of the nut, tomentose on the outside, tuberculate at base, scales with short obtuse tips becoming smaller and thinner toward the rim.

The BARK is light gray, varying to dark gray and to white; shallow fissured and scaly. BRANCHLETS at first bright green, later reddish-green and finally light gray. A distinguishing feature of this tree is that a little over halfway up the trunk the bark tends to form overlapping scales that are easily noticed and aid in identification.

The WOOD is light brown with paler sapwood; strong, tough, heavy, fine-grained and durable. Specific gravity, 0.7470; weight of one cubic foot, 46.35 lbs; weight of one cubic meter 770 kg.

WINTER BUDS are reddish brown, obtuse, one-eighth of an inch long.

The acorns are much less bitter than the acorns of red oaks. They are small relative to most oaks, but are a valuable WILDLIFE food, notably for turkeys, wood ducks, pheasants, grackles, jays, nuthatches, thrushes, woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels and deer. The white oak is the only known food plant of the Bucculatrix luteella and Bucculatrix ochrisuffusa caterpillars.

The young shoots of many eastern oak species are readily eaten by deer. Dried oak leaves are also occasionally eaten by white-tailed deer in the fall or winter. Rabbits often browse twigs and can girdle stems.