The acorns are very striking in appearance. The brown nut is often 2 inches long and set in a thick, hairy cup, covered with coarse, pointed scales that become elongated toward the rim, and form a loose, fringed border. The nut is half covered by the cup as a rule. Sometimes it is quite swallowed up in it. From this the species is sometimes, but erroneously, called the overcup oak.
This tree is one of the most widely distributed and valuable of North American oaks. It has an astonishing power of adapta tion to different regions and climates. It grows from Nova Scotia to western Texas; there are forests of it in Winnipeg; it forms the "oak openings" of Minnesota and Dakota. It seems as much at home in the hot and arid stretches of the West and Southwest as in the cold, damp air of the coast of New Eng land, or the fertile valley of the Ohio, where it reached nearly 200 feet in height in the virgin forests.
The sturdiness of the bur oak, its rapid growth in good soil, its rugged picturesqueness, winter and summer, all commend it to planters. It is one of the most ornamental of American oaks in cultivation; and the raising and transplanting of it are fairly easy. People who do not plant oaks because they take so long to become big trees miss much pleasure they have not counted on. It may be children's children who see the aged tree, beautiful in its expression of massiveness and rugged strength. But the planter enjoys the grace of the sapling, the rich foliage of the young tree which is always larger than on the old ones; and there is very early seen in any bur oak the stocky build and the shaggy bark that mark the adult tree. It grows rapidly, and soon blossoms and fruits freely. Every year shows gains, and the cycle of the year in the treetop is worthy of close attention.
The wood of white oaks is of highest quality, the English oak itself being one of this group. The bur oak is counted even better than that of Quercus alba, when grown in rich soil. The planting of bur oaks on the prairie is especially recommended by those who underStand the conditions prevailing there. It is grown for shade and for lumber.
heavy, hard, durable. Buds small, blunt pointed, hairy, brown. Leaves obovate, narrowed at base, 6 to 8 inches long, with 3 to 5 pairs of oblong or pointed lobes, with wide sinuses, especially the middle pair, bright green above, shining, with dense white down beneath. Acorns annual, short stalked; nut flattened and almost or entirely enclosed by the round, rough-scaled cup; to 11 inches across. Preferred habitat, coast or river swamps. Distribution, Maryland to Florida; west to Missouri and Texas. Rare except in the Southwest. Uses: Rare in cultivation. Wood confused with white oak in the trade.
The distinguishing feature of this oak is its button-like acorns. The scaly cup quite swallows up the nut, as a rule. The grey of bark and leaf lining, the narrow, deeply cut leaves, and the strong, durable wood are all characteristics that show this tree's close kinship with the bur oak on one side and the post oak on the other. It grows to majestic proportions in watery ground and wears a luxuriant crown of shining foliage.