Occasionally cultivated in the northeastern states and hardy in eastern Massachusetts.
× Quercus Comptonae Sarg., a hybrid of Quercus lyrata and Q. virginiana, with characters intermediate between those of its parents, discovered many years ago on the banks of Peyton’s Creek, Matagorda County, Texas (now gone), occurs with several individuals near dwellings in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi, near Selma, Dallas County, Alabama, and in Audubon Park and streets, New Orleans, Louisiana. A tree, sometimes 100° high and one of the handsomest of North American Oaks; also produced artificially by Professor H. Ness by crossing Quercus lyrata and Q. virginiana.
44. [Quercus stellata] Wang. Post Oak.
Quercus minor Sarg.
Leaves oblong-obovate, usually deeply 5-lobed, with broad sinuses oblique in the bottom, and short wide lobes, broad and truncate or obtusely pointed at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate, or occasionally abruptly narrowed and cuneate or rounded at base, when they unfold dark red above and densely pubescent, at maturity thick and firm, deep dark green and roughened by scattered fascicled pale hairs above, covered below with gray, light yellow, or rarely silvery white pubescence, usually 4′—5′ long and 3′—4′ across the lateral lobes, with a broad light-colored midrib pubescent on the upper side and tomentose or pubescent on the lower, stout lateral veins arcuate and united near the margins and connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets; turning dull yellow or brown in the autumn; petioles stout, pubescent, ½′ to nearly 1′ in length. Flowers: staminate in aments 3′—4′ long; calyx hirsute, yellow, usually divided into 5 ovate acute laciniately cut segments; anthers covered by short scattered pale hairs; pistillate sessile or stalked, their involucral scales broadly ovate, hirsute; stigmas bright red. Fruit sessile or short-stalked; nut oval to ovoid or ovoid-oblong, broad at base, obtuse and naked or covered with pale persistent pubescence at apex, ½′—1′ long, ¼′—¾′ thick, sometimes striate with dark longitudinal stripes, inclosed for one third to one half its length in the cup-shaped, turbinate, or rarely saucer-shaped cup pale and pubescent on the inner surface, hoary-tomentose on the outer surface, and covered by thin ovate scales rounded and acute at apex, reddish brown, and sometimes toward the rim of the cup ciliate on the margins with long pale hairs.
A tree, rarely 100° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, and stout spreading branches forming a broad dense round-topped head, and stout branchlets coated at first, like the young leaves and petioles, the stalks of the aments of staminate flowers and the peduncles of the pistillate flowers, with thick orange-brown tomentum, light orange color to reddish brown, and covered by short soft pubescence during their first winter, ultimately gray, dark brown, nearly black or bright brown tinged with orange color; usually not more than 50°—60° tall, with a trunk 1°—2° in diameter, and at the northeastern limits of its range generally reduced to a shrub. Winter-buds broadly ovoid, obtuse or rarely acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with bright chestnut-brown pubescent scales coated toward the margins with scattered pale hairs. Bark ½′—1′ thick, red more or less deeply tinged with brown, and divided by deep fissures into broad ridges covered on the surface with narrow closely appressed or rarely loose scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, durable in contact with the soil, difficult to season, light or dark brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely used for fuel, fencing, railway-ties, and sometimes in the manufacture of carriages, for cooperage, and in construction.
Distribution. Dry gravelly or sandy uplands; Cape Cod and islands of southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Long Island, New York, to western Florida and southern Alabama and Mississippi, and from New York westward to southern Iowa, Missouri, eastern Kansas, western (Dewey County) Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas; most abundant and of its largest size in the Mississippi basin; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of 2500°; the common Oak of central Texas on limestone hills and sandy plains forming the Texas “Cross Timbers”; usually shrubby and rare and local in southern Massachusetts; more abundant southward from the coast of the south Atlantic and the eastern Gulf states to the lower slopes of the Appalachian Mountains; in western Louisiana rarely in the moist soil of low lands.
Showing little variation in the shape of the fruit and in the character of the cup scales Quercus stellata is one of the most variable of North American Oaks in habit, in the nature of the bark, and in the presence or absence of pubescence. Some of the best marked varieties are var. araniosa Sarg., a large tree differing from the type in the usually smooth upper surface of the leaves, in the floccose persistent tomentum on their lower surface, in the less stout usually glabrous yellow or reddish branchlets, and in its scaly bark; dry sandy soil, southern Alabama, western Louisiana, southern Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. Var. paludosa Sarg., a tree up to 75° in height, differing from the type in its oblong-obovate leaves 3-lobed above the middle, slightly pubescent branchlets becoming nearly glabrous, and in its scaly bark; in rich deep soil on the often inundated bottoms of Kenison Bayou, near Washington, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Var. attenuata Sarg., a large tree differing from the type in the oblong to oblong-obovate narrow leaves 3-lobed at apex and gradually narrowed to the long cuneate base; near Arkansas Post on the White River, Arkansas County, Arkansas. Var. parviloba Sarg., a round-topped tree 25°—30° high, differing from the type in the smaller lobes of the leaves with more prominent reticulate veinlets; dry sandstone hills near Brownwood, Brown County, Texas. Var. anomala Sarg., a tree 15°—18° high, differing from the type in its broadly obovate subcoriaceous leaves slightly 3-lobed and rounded at apex; dry sandstone hills near Brownwood, Brown County, Texas; possibly a hybrid. Var. Palmeri Sarg., a shrub 6°—15° high, forming clumps, differing from the type in its narrow oblong or slightly obovate 5—7-lobed leaves with narrow lobes, densely tomentose below, and in the thicker and more tomentose scales of the cup; sandy uplands, Elk City, Beckham County, Oklahoma. Var. rufescens Sarg., a shrub 12°—15° high, forming large clumps, differing from the type in the rusty brown pubescence on the lower surface of the polymorphous leaves, in the deeper cups of the fruit with thicker basal scales; sandy uplands, Big Spring, Howard County, Texas, and Elk City, Beckham County, Oklahoma. Var. Boyntonii Sarg., a shrub or small tree spreading into thickets, rarely more than 15° in height, differing from the type in its obovate leaves, mostly 3—5-lobed toward the apex, with small rounded lobes, and in their yellow-brown pubescence also found on the branchlets; in glades on the summit of Lookout Mountain, above Gadsden and Attala, Etowah County, Alabama.
The common and most widely distributed of the varieties of the Post Oak is