Cornell Botanic Gardens

Common name: southern red oak, swamp red oak, American red oak, red oak, Spanish oak (English)

Family: Fagaceae (Beech)

Distribution: PA to TX & FL

Hardiness: Zone 6 (-10 to 0 F)

Life form: Deciduous tree

Oak Collection: Oak Collection

Description: Deciduous tree to 30m. Branches spreading, forming a rounded or ovoid crown. Bark dark brown tinted red, sometimes pale, deeply fissured into large, scaly plates. Branchlets red-brown pubescent at first. Leaves 7-20 x 5-12cm, obovate or oblong, apex acute or acuminate, base rounded, sometimes cuneate, pubescent at first above, becoming dark green glabrous and shining, densely silver-white tomentose beneath, margins sinuately lobed, lobes 3-7, falcate, acute, entire or with a few teeth; petiole 3-3.5cm downward curved, pubescent becoming glabrous. Acorns ripe in second year, 1.2-1.4 x 1-1.5cm, subglobose, apex mucronate, light red-brown, puberulent at fist; cupule obconical or a flat cup, red-brown, shining, scales adpressed, mostly glabrous, enclosing only base or to 1/3 of acorn.