Distribution. Rich hillsides and the fertile bottom-lands of streams; Lehigh County (Allentown to Dorney’s Park), Bedford, Huntington, Franklin and Union Counties, Pennsylvania, westward through Ohio to southern Michigan, southern Wisconsin and southeastern and southern Iowa (Muscatine to Taylor County), and southward to the District of Columbia, along the Appalachian Mountains and their foothills, up to altitudes of 2200°, to the valley of the Little Tennessee River, North Carolina, and to northern Georgia (Wilkes County), and middle Tennessee; through Missouri to northeastern Kansas and southeastern Nebraska, and in northern and southern Arkansas (Fulton, Hempstead County); comparatively rare in the east; one of the most abundant Oaks of the lower Ohio basin; probably growing to its largest size in southern Indiana and Illinois.
Occasionally planted as an ornamental tree in the northern states, and hardy as far north as Massachusetts.
× Quercus Leana Nutt., scattered usually in solitary individuals from the District of Columbia and western North Carolina to southern Michigan, central and northern Illinois and southeastern Missouri, is believed to be a hybrid between this species and Quercus velutina.
× Quercus tridentata Engelm., described as a hybrid of Quercus imbricaria and Q. marilandica first found at Allenton, Saint Louis County, Missouri, occurs also near Olney, Richland County, Illinois.
× Quercus exacta Trel., believed to be a hybrid of Quercus imbricaria and Q. palustris, occurs near Olney, Richland County, Illinois, and at Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana.
21. [Quercus hypoleuca] Engelm.
Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, occasionally somewhat falcate, acute and often apiculate at apex, cuneate or rounded or cordate at the narrow base, entire or repandly serrate above the middle with occasionally small minute rigid spinose teeth, or on vigorous shoots serrate-lobed with oblique acute lobes, when they unfold light red, covered with close pale pubescence above and coated below with thick hoary tomentum, at maturity thick and firm, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, covered on the lower with thick silvery white or fulvous tomentum, 2′—4′ long, ½′—1′ wide, with thickened revolute margins; turning yellow or brown and falling gradually during the spring after the appearance of the new leaves; petioles stout, flattened, pubescent or tomentose, ⅛′—¼′ in length. Flowers: staminate in slender aments 4′—5′ long; calyx slightly tinged with red, covered with pale hairs and divided into 4 or 5 broadly ovate rounded lobes; anthers acute, apiculate, bright red becoming yellow; pistillate mostly solitary, sessile or short-stalked, their involucral scales thin, scarious, and soft-pubescent; stigmas dark red. Fruit sessile or borne on a stout peduncle up to ½′ in length, usually solitary; nut ovoid, acute or rounded at the narrow hoary-pubescent apex, dark green and often striate when ripe, becoming light chestnut-brown in drying, ½′—⅔′ long, the shell lined with white tomentum, inclosed for about one third its length in a turbinate thick cup pubescent on the inner surface, and covered by thin broadly ovate light chestnut-brown scales rounded at apex and clothed, especially toward the base of the cup, with soft silvery pubescence.
A tree, usually 20°—30° or sometimes 60° high, with a tall trunk 10′—15′ in diameter, slender branches spreading into a narrow round-topped inversely conic head, and stout rigid branchlets coated at first with thick hoary tomentum disappearing during the first winter, becoming light red-brown often covered with a glaucous bloom and ultimately nearly black; frequently a shrub. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, about ⅛′ long, with thin light chestnut-brown scales. Bark ¾′—1′ thick, nearly black, deeply divided into broad ridges broken on the surface into thick plate-like scales. Wood heavy, very strong, hard, close-grained, dark brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Scattered but nowhere abundant through Pine-forests on the slopes of cañons and on high ridges usually at altitudes between 6000°—7000° above the sea on the mountains of western Texas, and of southern New Mexico and Arizona; in northern Chihuahua and Sonora.