A tree, 70°—80° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, comparatively small branches spreading gradually and forming a rather narrow open head, and slender branchlets coated at first with loose scurfy pubescence, soon pale green and lustrous, light red or orange-red in their first winter and light or dark brown the following year; usually much smaller. Winter-buds ellipsoidal or ovoid, gradually narrowed at apex, ⅛′—¼′ long, dark reddish brown, and pale-pubescent above the middle. Bark of young stems and branches smooth, light brown, becoming on old trunks ½′—1′ thick and divided by shallow fissures into irregular ridges covered by small light brown scales slightly tinged with red. Wood heavy, hard, strong, coarse-grained, light or reddish brown, with thicker darker colored sapwood.
Distribution. Light dry usually sandy soil; valley of the Androscoggin River, Maine, southern New Hampshire and Vermont to southern Ontario, southward to the District of Columbia and along the Appalachian Mountains to eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and northern Georgia; in central Georgia and northeastern Mississippi (near Corinth, Alcorn County), and westward through New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and southern Wisconsin to central Missouri (Jerome, Phelps County); in eastern Oklahoma (Arkansas River valley near Fisher, Creek County, G. W. Stevens); ascending to altitudes of nearly 5000° on the southern mountains; the prevailing Oak above 2500° to the summits of the Blue Ridge of the Carolinas; very abundant in the coast region from Massachusetts Bay to southern New Jersey; less common in the interior, growing on dry gravelly uplands, and on the prairies skirting the western margins of the eastern forest.
Occasionally planted in the northeastern states and in Europe as an ornamental tree valued chiefly for the brilliant autumn color of the foliage.
× Quercus Robbinsii Trel., believed to be a hybrid of Quercus coccinea and Q. ilicifolia, occurs at North Easton, Bristol County, Massachusetts.
× Quercus Benderi Baenitz, a supposed hybrid of Quercus coccinea and Q. borealis var. maxima, appeared several years ago in Silesia, and a similar tree has been found in the Blue Hills Reservation near Boston.
6. [Quercus palustris] Muench. Pin Oak. Swamp Spanish Oak.
Leaves obovate, narrowed and cuneate or broad and truncate at base, divided by wide deep sinuses rounded in the bottom into 5—7 lobes, the terminal lobe ovate, acute, 3-toothed toward the apex, or entire, the lateral lobes spreading or oblique, sometimes falcate, especially those of the lowest pair, gradually tapering and acute at the dentate apex, or obovate and broad at apex, when they unfold light bronze-green stained with red on the margins, lustrous and puberulous above, coated below and on the petioles with pale scurfy pubescence, at maturity thin and firm, dark green and very lustrous above, pale below, with large tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the conspicuous primary veins; 4′—6′ long, 2′—4′ wide, with a stout midrib; late in the autumn gradually turning deep scarlet; petioles slender, yellow, ½′—2′ in length. Flowers: staminate in hairy aments 2′—3′ long; calyx puberulous and divided into 4 or 5 oblong rounded segments more or less laciniately cut on the margins, shorter than the stamens; pistillate on short tomentose peduncles, their involucral scales broadly ovate, tomentose, shorter than the acuminate calyx-lobes; stigmas bright red. Fruit sessile or short-stalked, solitary or clustered; nut nearly hemispheric, about ½′ in diameter, light brown, often striate, inclosed only at the base in a thin saucer-shaped cup dark red-brown and lustrous within, and covered by closely appressed ovate light red-brown thin puberulous scales.
A tree, usually 70°—80° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, often clothed with small tough drooping branches, or when crowded in the forest sometimes 120° high, with a trunk 60°—70° tall and 4°—5° in diameter, slender branches beset with short-ridged spur-like laterals a few inches in length, forming on young trees a broad pyramidal head, becoming on older trees open and irregular, with rigid and more pendulous branches often furnished at first with small drooping branchlets, and slender tough branchlets dark red and covered by short pale silvery tomentum, soon becoming green and glabrous, lustrous dark red-brown or orange color in their first winter, growing darker in their second year and ultimately dark gray-brown. Winter-buds ovoid, gradually narrowed and acute at apex, about ⅛′ long, with imbricated light chestnut-brown scales puberulous toward the thin sometimes ciliate margins. Bark of young trunks and branches smooth, lustrous, light brown frequently tinged with red, becoming on older trunks ¾′—1¼′ thick, light gray-brown, generally smooth and covered by small closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, coarse-grained, light brown, with thin rather darker colored sapwood; sometimes used in construction, and for shingles and clapboards.
Distribution. Borders of swamps and river-bottoms in deep rich moist soil; valley of the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts and Connecticut; on Grand Isle in the Niagara River, New York to southern Ontario and southwestern Michigan, and westward to eastern Iowa (Muscatine County), and southward to southern West Virginia (Hardy and Mercer Counties), southwestern Virginia (Wythe County), central North Carolina (on Bowling’s Creek, near Chapel Hill, Orange County, and on Dutchman’s Creek, Forsyth County); and to southern Kentucky, central Tennessee, southern Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County), and northeastern Oklahoma; rare and of small size in New England; exceedingly common on the coast plain south of the Hudson River; very abundant on the bottom-lands of the streams of the lower Ohio River.