P 



POST OAK 



(Quercus Minor) 



iOST oak is the most common name for this tree but various sec- 

 tions of its range have given it their own names which probably 

 have local significance. The following names are in use in the localities 

 denoted : post oak in the eastern and Gulf states, Connecticut to Texas, 

 and in Arkansas and West Virginia; box white oak in Rhode Island; 

 iron oak in Delaware, Mississippi and Nebraska; chene e"toile in Quebec; 

 overcup oak in Florida; white oak in Kentucky and Indiana; box oak 

 and brash oak in Maryland. 



Toward the northern portion of the range of this tree it is small, 

 and in early times it was little used except for fence posts. Its 

 durability fitted it for that use, and it is said the common name was 

 due to that circumstance. The name iron oak was used by shipbuild- 

 ers who sometimes bought small knees made of this wood. Baltimore 

 oak was an early name which is not now in use. It was generally 

 applied to white oak, but it included some post oak shipped from the 

 Chesapeake bay region. 



Post oak is botanically and commercially a white oak and is seldom 

 distinguished from the true white oak, Quercus alba, in commerce. It is 

 seen at its best in the uplands of the Mississippi basin and in the Gulf 

 states west of the Mississippi, where it attains a considerable size. In 

 the northeastern states and in Florida it is small, becoming shrubby in 

 some localities, and more or less of local growth. Limestone uplands or 

 dry, sandy or gravelly soils seem to offer the best conditions for its 

 existence, where it grows in company with black jack, red and white 

 oak, sassafras, dogwood, gums, and red cedar. 



The range of growth of post oak extends from New Brunswick 

 south through the Atlantic states into Florida; west through the Gulf 

 states and throughout the Mississippi river system, growing west 

 brokenly to Montana. It is the common oak of central Texas but in the 

 North it is rather scarce, becoming more plentiful in the lower Appa- 

 lachians. 



The broad, dense, round-topped crown of the post oak with its 

 peculiar foliage make it very noticeable in the woods, even to the casual 

 observer. Its dark green looks almost black at a distance. The tree 

 has an average height of sixty or eighty feet and is about two feet in 

 diameter, but in exceptional cases it reaches one hundred feet in height 

 and has a diameter of three feet. It has a moderately thick, dark 

 brown bark with a reddish tinge and deep fissures, the broad ridges being 



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