Swamp White Oak Quercus platanoides
A large tree, 60 to 80 feet high, common in swamps and where the soil is moist. The bark shags off along the branches, and the trunk is more deeply fissured than that of the white oak. The twigs are coarser than those of the white oak, often shorter in length, and the stems are rounder. Short, thick-set buds and alternate leaf-scars. Acorns set in a shallow cup, often mossy-fringed at the margin; the nut is sweet and edible.
TRUNK OF A WHITE OAK
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When once the swamp white oak’s peculiarities are known it is seldom confused with any other oak, even in winter. Its unkempt appearance, the peeling away of the bark along the branches, and its generally straggling habit of growth distinguish it quite as much in the winter as at any other season of the year; it is at all times the untidy member of the oak family. The branches begin very low down on the trunk of this oak, and one can distinguish the tree from a distance in this way. Emerson says that in warm and sheltered situations it is a neat and beautiful tree, but that when it is too much exposed to the east or north wind it shows the effect by its ragged appearance; as one sees the tree generally through Southeastern New England one deduces from its appearance that the prevalent winds are those from the east and north.
The wood is heavy, hard, strong, and tough, and is used for the same things that that of the white oak is used for, and is not distinguished from it commercially.
The specific name, platanoides (platanus-like), comes from the generic name of the plane tree or buttonwood, and refers to the bark of the young trees, which, like that of the buttonwood, separates and curls off in large thin flakes along the branches.
The swamp white oak grows in low, wet ground throughout the Northeastern States.
Mossy Cup, Overcup or Bur Oak Quercus macrocarpa