Black Oak (Plants of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum Grounds, Chicago, Illinois)

Black Oak

Quercus velutina

Summary ⁷

Quercus velutina, the eastern black oak or more commonly known as simply black oak, is an oak in the red oak (Quercus sect. Lobatae) group of oaks. It is native to eastern North America from southern Ontario south to northern Florida and southern Maine west to northeastern Texas. It is a common tree in the Indiana Dunes and other sandy dunal ecosystems along the southern shores of Lake Michigan. Quercus velutina was previously known as yellow...

Taxon biology ⁸

Fagaceae -- Beech family

Ivan L. Sander

Black oak (Quercus velutina) is a common, medium-sized to large oak of the eastern and midwestern United States. It is sometimes called yellow oak, quercitron, yellowbark oak, or smoothbark oak. It grows best on moist, rich, well-drained soils, but it is often found on poor, dry sandy or heavy glacial clay hillsides where it seldom lives more than 200 years. Good crops of acorns provide wildlife with food. The wood, commercially valuable for furniture and flooring, is sold as red oak. Black oak is seldom used for landscaping.