Flowering Trees & Shrubs Codexery

Quercus alba

Long-lived hardwood of eastern North America, valued for wood and wildlife.

Last updated

Quercus alba is a hardwood tree native to eastern and central North America, with specimens documented to be over 450 years old.[1] The common name "white oak" refers to the pale color of the leaf undersides, not the bark, which is usually light gray.[2]

Scientific classification

  1. CladeTracheophytes
  2. CladeAngiosperms
  3. CladeEudicots
  4. CladeRosids
  5. OrderFagales
  6. FamilyFagaceae
  7. GenusQuercus
  8. GenusQuercus
  9. SpeciesQuercus alba

Named by L.

Close relatives

Other species of Quercus with a Codexery entry.

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Quercus alba (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Conservation status

Least Concern (LC)

  1. LC▲ this species
  2. NT
  3. VU
  4. EN
  5. CR
  6. EW
  7. EX
Population trend
Not held in our sources — see the assessment
Assessment published
2015

Source: IUCN Red List assessment · GBIF copy of the Red List category

Where the quercus alba has been recorded

Where the quercus alba has been recorded3 mapped locations from 48,541 GBIF occurrence records; marked places: Bedford (town), New YorkBedford (town), New York

Each dot is a place where the species has been observed and reported (48,541 records, half-degree grid) — not a modelled range. 248 inland records left out (institution coordinates).

Map: drawn by Codexery. Data: GBIF occurrence search (records CC0 / CC BY) · Natural Earth basemap (public domain) · place coordinates: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Biology and range

It is fairly tolerant of varied habitats, occurring on ridges, valleys, dry and moist sites, and in moderately acid and alkaline soils.[3] The acorns are much less bitter than those of red oaks and are eaten by turkeys, wood ducks, squirrels, deer, and black bear.[4] White-tailed deer also browse the young shoots and occasionally eat dried oak leaves in fall or winter.[5] The wood contains tyloses that make it water- and rot-resistant, and it is used for wine and whiskey barrels, construction, shipbuilding, and Native American basketry.[6]

Quercus alba primarily grows in lowland areas, yet it can be found at elevations up to 1,600 m within the Appalachian Mountains.[3] Oak-heath forests frequently have Quercus alba as a component of their canopy layer.[3] Reproductive maturity in Quercus alba starts at roughly 20 years of age, but substantial acorn production is not achieved until the tree reaches its 50th year.[7] Once acorns ripen, they spoil rapidly; seeds that are six months old exhibit only a 10% germination rate.[7]

What the specialist sources record

An encyclopedia account of the Mingo Oak states that it was reportedly the largest white oak in the world, standing 145 feet tall and just over eight feet in diameter at breast height, with a limb spread of 96 feet.[8] That account also reports that the Mingo Oak was cut down on September 23, 1938, after succumbing to fumes from a burning coal refuse pile.[8] The Bedford Historical Society also states that in 1942, Harold Whitman transferred ownership of the land where the tree stands to the Town of Bedford as a memorial to his wife, Georgia Squires Whitman.[9]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ; "Eastern OLDLIST: A database of maximum tree ages for Eastern North America" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Keeler, "Our Native Trees and How to Identify Them", Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900, p. 328–332 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The Natural Communities of Virginia Classification of Ecological Community Groups (Version 2.3), Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, 2010"; Schafale, M. P. and A. S. Weakley. 1990. Classification of the natural communities of North Carolina: third approximation. North Carolina Natural Heritage Progr (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Elias, "Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods", Sterling, 2009, p. 228, 231 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Houston, David R. 1971. Noninfectious diseases of oaks. In: Oak symposium: Proceedings; 1971 August 16–20; Morgantown, WV. Upper Darby, PA: U.S. Department of A; Van Lear, David H.; Johnson, Von J. 1983. Effects of prescribed burning in the southern Appalachian and upper Piedmont forests: a review. Forestry Bull. No. 36.; Houston, David R. 1971. Noninfectious diseases of oaks. In: Oak symposium: Proceedings; 1971 August 16–20; Morgantown, WV. Upper Darby, PA: U.S. Department of A (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Keeler, "Our Native Trees and How to Identify Them", Charles Scribner's Sons, 1900, p. 328–332; Banks, "Ethnobotany of the Cherokee Indians", Masters Theses, 1953-03-01 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Quercus alba" (CC BY-SA 4.0) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Encyclopedia, "September 23, 1938: Cutting of the Mingo Oak", www.wvpublic.org. facts only, no text reused. wvpublic.org
  9. "Bedford Oak - c. 1500", Bedford Historical Society. facts only, no text reused. bedfordhistoricalsociety.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Quercus alba (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

Related entries

Named in this entry

Oak

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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