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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-997
Overcup Oak
Quercus lyrata
Overcup Oak is a slow-growing white oak of river floodplains and swamp margins, so flood-tolerant it survives continuous submersion for two full growing seasons and leafs out a month later than its neighbors to ride out spring high water. Its acorn sits almost entirely inside its cup - the trait the name comes from - and is sweeter and lower in tannin than most oak acorns, needing far less leaching before it's ground into flour or roasted as a coffee substitute. The wood is unusually durable in ground contact for an oak, used for construction, tools and furniture, but nothing arrives quickly: acorns don't start until about 25 years old and good crops come only every third or fourth year. Its shallow, saucer-shaped roots hold wet clay in place but resent disturbance, so it grows best planted young and left alone.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 5–9
- Soil
- Clay · Loam
- Moisture
- Wet · Moist
Vertical layer
Canopy- Soil pH
- 4.5–8
- Plant type
- Deciduous Tree
- Mature height
- 40–60 ft
- Mature spread
- 40–60 ft
- Plant spacing
- 35–60 ft
- Root type
- Fibrous-shallow
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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