SPANISH OAK
Quercus falcata Michx.
Other Name: Southern Red Oak.
Growth Form: Large tree up to 80 feet tall; trunk diameter up to 4 feet; crown broadly rounded, with stiff, stout, spreading branchlets; trunk straight, rather stout.
Bark: Dark brown to nearly black, shallowly furrowed.
Twigs: Reddish-brown to gray, smooth or nearly so at maturity; pith star-shaped in cross-section; leaf scars alternate but clustered near the tip, half-round, slightly elevated, with several bundle traces.
Buds: Ovoid, pointed, chestnut-brown, hairy, up to ¼ inch long.
Leaves: Alternate, simple; blades broadly rounded at the base, 3- to 5-lobed, the terminal lobe usually long, narrow, and strongly curved, all lobes bristle-tipped, up to 8 inches long, up to 6 inches wide, green on the upper surface, pale and densely soft-hairy on the lower surface; leaf stalk up to 2½ inches long, slender, usually hairy.
Flowers: Staminate and pistillate borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing when the leaves begin to unfold, minute, without petals, the staminate in slender, drooping, densely hairy catkins, the pistillate few in a rusty-hairy cluster, with dark red stigmas.
Fruit: Acorn usually solitary, with or without a short stalk, the nut spherical or ellipsoid, up to ½ inch long, orange-brown, the cup covering only up to ⅓ of the nut, with hairy, reddish-brown scales.
Wood: Heavy, hard, strong, coarse-grained, reddish-brown.