A tree, 70°—80° and rarely 100° high, with a tall trunk 2°—3° in diameter, spreading and ascending branches forming a broad rather open head, and slender glabrous red-brown or gray-brown brittle-jointed branchlets. Winter-buds ovoid to ellipsoid, acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with closely imbricated acute puberulous chestnut-brown scales ciliate on the margins. Bark pale, scaly, and on old trunks divided into broad ridges.
Distribution. Banks of streams and river bluffs in deep rich soil; coast of South Carolina (Bluffton, Clay County, and near Charleston); Dover, Scriven County, McIntosh County, De Soto Co., Sumter County, and near Bainbridge, Decatur County, Georgia, to central and western Florida (Gainesville, Alachua County, near Santos, Marion County, Lake City, Columbia County, River Junction, Gadsden County, Marianna, Jackson County); western Alabama (Gallion, Hale County, and the neighborhood of Selma [common] and Pleasant Hill, Dallas County); and southern Mississippi (Meridian, Lauderdale County, Laurel, Jones County, Byram and near Jackson, Hinds County, near Natchez, Adams County).
50. [Quercus alba] L. White Oak.
Leaves oblong-obovate, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, divided often nearly to the midrib by narrow or broad sinuses usually oblique in the bottom into 7 or 9 lobes, the lateral, narrow, lanceolate or obovate, pointing forward, rounded or acute and often lobed at apex, the terminal usually obovate and 3-lobed, when they unfold bright red above, pale below and coated with soft pubescence, soon becoming silvery white and very lustrous, at maturity thin, firm, glabrous, bright green and lustrous or dull above, pale or glaucous below, 5′—9′ long, 2′—4′ wide, with a stout bright yellow midrib and conspicuous primary veins; turning late in the autumn deep rich vinous red, gradually withering and sometimes remaining on the branches nearly through the winter; petioles stout, glabrous, ½′—1′ in length. Flowers: staminate in hirsute or nearly glabrous aments 2½′—3′ long; calyx bright yellow and pubescent, with acute lobes; pistillate bright red, their involucral scales broadly ovate, hirsute, about as long as the ovate acute calyx-lobes. Fruit sessile or raised on a slender peduncle 1′—2′ long, the two forms sometimes appearing on the same branch; nut ovoid to oblong, rounded at apex, lustrous, ¾′ long, green when fully grown, becoming light chestnut-brown, inclosed for about one fourth its length in the cup-shaped cup coated with pale or light brown tomentum, its scales at the base much thickened, united and produced into short obtuse membranaceous tips, and thinner toward the rim of the cup.
A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, tall and naked in the forest, short in the open, and surmounted by a broad round-topped head of stout limbs spreading irregularly, small rigid branches, and slender branchlets at first bright green, often tinged with red, and coated with a loose mass of long pale or ferrugineous deciduous hairs, reddish brown during the summer, bright red and lustrous or covered with a glaucous bloom during their first winter, becoming ultimately ashy gray. Winter-buds broadly ovoid, rather obtuse, dark red-brown, about ⅛′ long. Bark light gray slightly tinged with red or brown, or occasionally nearly white, broken into thin appressed scales, becoming on old trunks sometimes 2′ thick and divided into broad flat ridges. Wood strong, very heavy, hard, tough, close-grained, durable, light brown, with thin light brown sapwood; used in shipbuilding, for construction and in cooperage, the manufacture of carriages, agricultural implements, baskets, the interior finish of houses, cabinet-making, for railway-ties and fences, and largely as fuel.
Distribution. Sandy plains and gravelly ridges, rich uplands, intervales, and moist bottom-lands, sometimes forming nearly pure forests; southern Maine to southwestern Quebec, westward through southern Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan, southeastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa, and southeastern Nebraska, and southward to western Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the Brazos River, Texas and through Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky; ascending the southern Appalachian Mountains as a low bush to altitudes of 4500°; most abundant and of its largest size on the lower western slopes of the Alleghany Mountains and on the bottom-lands of the lower Ohio Basin. Passing into
Quercus alba var. latiloba Sarg.
Leaves obovate-oblong, acute or rounded at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, divided usually less than half way to the midrib into broad rounded lobes; rarely obovate, with undulate margins, or slightly lobed, with broad rounded lobes (var. repanda Michx.). Flowers as in the type. Fruit rarely more than 1½′ in length, with usually thinner cup scales.