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Published In: Histoire des Chênes de l'Amérique no. 16, pl. 28. 1801. (Hist. Chênes Amér.) Name publication detail
 

Project Name Data (Last Modified On 8/18/2017)
Acceptance : Synonym
Project Data     (Last Modified On 7/9/2009)
Status: Native

 

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4. Quercus falcata Michx. (Spanish oak, southern red oak)

Pl. 414 j, k; Map 1842

Plants trees to 30 m tall. Bark medium to dark gray, divided into narrow persistent blocks or ridges, the inner bark orange. Twigs 2–3 mm wide, dark brown or tawny, with scattered or crowded, branched, spreading hairs. Buds 4–7 mm long, brown or dark brown, the lower scales pubescent or glabrous, except along the margins, the upper scales pubescent. Petioles 12–77 mm long. Leaf blades 9–21 cm long, 7–18 cm wide, rounded-obtuse to rounded at the base, rarely truncate, divided 60–90% of the width, with 1 or 2 large lobes and 0–2 smaller lobes or teeth per side, these usually unevenly spaced (most leaves with a long, unlobed, narrowly or rarely broadly rectangular apical portion), the basalmost lobes all or mostly 3–11 cm above the blade base; well-developed lobes 13–30 mm wide, narrowly lanceolate, rarely ovate, long-tapered or rarely obtuse apically, undivided or with a tooth on the lower margin, each with 1 or 2(3) bristles 3–4 mm long (the whole blade with 6–12 marginal bristles), with 2–4 secondary veins per side reaching the margin at the tips of lobes or teeth and ending in bristles, others reaching toward sinuses and turning aside before reaching the margin; the upper surface dark green and shiny, almost glabrous (with small branched spreading hairs mostly near the major veins), the undersurface tawny, with moderately to densely crowded 7–11-rayed, spreading hairs and often also inconspicuous unbranched appressed hairs over the whole surface, very felty to the touch, the vein axils with small tufts of 6–12-rayed, often stalked hairs. Acorn cups 6–8 mm long, 12–16 mm wide, covering 30–50% of the nut, bowl-shaped, the inner surface smooth, densely hairy, the outer surface with the scales thin and plane or weakly convex-thickened, pubescent. Nuts 10–13 mm long, 9–12 mm wide, ellipsoid to globose, without distinct concentric grooves around the tip. April–May.

Scattered mostly in southernmost Missouri, north locally to Camden and Perry Counties (southeastern U.S. west to Missouri and Texas). Bottomland forests, mesic upland forests, savannas, sand savannas, sand prairies, margins of glades, banks of stream and rivers, oxbows, sloughs, and swamps; also roadsides.

Morphological variation in Q. falcata was analyzed statistically by R. J. Jensen (1989). Typical leaves have 1 or 2 pairs of large lateral lobes on the lower part of the blade; the apical part of the leaf is longer than the lateral lobes. Leaf blades with large lateral lobes above the midpoint and an unlobed tip that is no larger than the lateral lobes are sometimes seen, especially leaves from deeply shaded branches on the lower side of the crown. Specimens with this leaf form have been called f. triloba (Michx.) E.J. Palmer & Steyerm. Plants having relatively narrow leaves with short lateral lobes have been called f. angustior E.J. Palmer & Steyerm. Hybrids have been recorded with four other species.

 


 

 
 
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