Plant · P-995

Water Oak

Quercus nigra

Water Oak is a fast-growing, short-lived oak of southeastern bottomlands and moist stream margins, reaching a broad conical crown 50 to 100 feet tall. Its acorns were once dried and ground into flour for stews and bread, or roasted as a coffee substitute, after leaching out the bitter tannins - though the tree doesn't bear its first crop until about twenty years old. The wood is heavy and strong, but the tree itself is weaker-limbed than most oaks and prone to storm damage and rot as it ages, so it needs room away from anything a falling limb could hit. It self-sows so readily that volunteers turn up wherever an acorn lands, which makes it an easy, free source of replacement stock.