Extension Forestry

WhiteOak - Quercus alba

Leaves are alternate, simple, lobed; with rounded tips. Fruit is an acorn.

leaf

  The white oak is one of our most important, largest, longest-lived and mostvaluable timber trees.  It grows to 100 feet in height and 3 to 4 feet in diameter.  In the timber it forms a tall, straight tree, but in the open it is wide andspreading.  Found over all of the eastern UnitedStates and widely over Iowaexcept the northwestern part, it occurs on a wide variety of soils, but usuallyon upland clay soils.

The single leaves are 4 to 7 inches long and about half as broad,deeply divided into seven to nine rounded, finger-like lobes. The young leaves are a soft, silvery gray or yellow to red when unfolding, later becoming bright green above and much paler be low.

  The acorn is about 1 inch long, elliptical, and covered about 1/3 its length by a finelytwig  scaled, rounded cup.

fruit  The twigs are fine, and gray to green in color. The bark is ashy gray to a very light gray and decidedly scaly. On older trunks it is somewhat ridged, but remains ashy gray and scaly.



 

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Contact: Paul Wray

Last Update: January, 2001