Plant · P-996

Southern Red Oak

Quercus falcata

Southern Red Oak is a long-lived upland tree that grows fast for an oak and can hold on ground too worn out for most other trees to bear. Its acorns can be leached and ground into flour or roasted as a coffee substitute, though the crop only ripens every other year and the tree doesn't bear its first one until about twenty-five years old. The bark has a long history as a fever and dysentery remedy, chewed for mouth sores and brewed as a tonic. Straight-trunked when young, it spreads into a broad, well-formed crown that makes it one of the better shade trees for eroded or degraded soil.