Common Name: Black Oak
Scientific Name: Quercus velutina
Location: Red Barn Park
Identifying Features
The lone black oak is surrounded by pin oaks. Relative to pin oaks, the black oak leaves are larger and less deeply dissected. Also, the twigs are velvety-hairy (versus smooth in pin oak) and the acorns are larger with more conspicuous caps that are ‘shaggy’ in appearance.
Distribution/Geography
Black Oak is mainly found in the Southeastern and Appalachian areas of the United States, specifically widely distributed from southwestern Maine west in New York to extreme southern Ontario, southeastern Minnesota, and Iowa; south in eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, central Oklahoma, and eastern Texas; and east to northwestern Florida and Georgia. Of course, this region includes the vast majority of Missouri, as well.
Click here to see a map of where the Black Oak can be found.
Uses
The wood of black oak hard, heavy and strong. The wood is usually of less value than red oak because the trees are often more open grown and tend to develop more branches. It is used in furniture, flooring, pallets, boxes, railroad ties, and mine timbers.
History
The inner bark of the black oak contains a yellow-orange coloring from the pigment quercitron, which was sold commercially in Europe until the 1940s, and lending the species its former common name of yellow oak.
Fun Fact
Black oak acorns are an important food for squirrels, white-tail deer, mice, voles, turkeys, and other birds (11). In Illinois, fox squirrels have been observed feeding on black oak catkins (14). Black oak is not extensively planted as an ornamental, but its fall color contributes greatly to the esthetic value of oak forests.