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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-572
Cork Oak
Quercus suber
Cork Oak is the Mediterranean evergreen whose bark is the world's cork - the only oak that can have its bark stripped repeatedly, every 9 to 12 years, without killing the tree. The first harvest doesn't come until the tree is 15 to 30 years old, and even that first strip is low grade; it's the later strippings, decades further on, that produce the valuable cork. Along the way it also yields an acorn edible once its tannin is leached out, though one wild Moroccan population produces acorns sweet enough to eat raw, tasting of chestnut. It thrives on poor, sandy, acidic ground and shrugs off drought and strong wind, but grows slowly at every stage and does poorly on chalky or lime-rich soil despite sometimes being described as lime tolerant.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 8–10
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 5–6
- Plant type
- Evergreen Tree
- Mature height
- 70–100 ft
- Mature spread
- 70–100 ft
- Plant spacing
- 40–70 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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