SPANISH OAK 253 



SPANISH OAK: Quercus pagodcefolia 



THIS species of the Red Oak class can be found from 

 southern New Jersey to Florida and through the Gulf 

 States to eastern Texas, Arkansas, southwestern Missouri 

 to middle Tennessee and Kentucky and northern Illinois 

 and Indiana. It is very generally called Spanish Oak, es- 

 caping, as many have not, a multitude of strange names. 

 Its best development is along the swamps of the Mississippi 

 River, in the Yazoo basin, and in eastern Arkansas, where it 

 grows to be one hundred feet high and five feet in diameter, 

 quite clean of limbs for forty or fifty feet, and is one of the 

 important timber trees of those localities. It prefers rich 

 bottom lands and alluvial banks of streams, and does not 

 seriously object to the borders of swamps too wet for many 

 other trees. Like all other Oaks it demands light, and 

 must be grown in a crowded situation until it reaches 

 nearly or quite its natural height-growth, when it will form 

 a comparatively small crown ; but when grown in the open 

 it will throw out limbs low down and form an open and 

 wide-spreading crown. 



The wood is largely used in place of White Oak and is 

 probably among the best of the Red Oak class for some 

 purposes. The heartwood is light red with a tinge of brown 

 and the sapwood is thin and nearly white. The annual 

 layers are very distinct, the summer wood being much 

 more compact than that of spring, with few but conspic- 

 uous medullary rays. The greatest obstacle to its general 

 use lies in the difficulty in seasoning it, as it checks badly. 

 Were it not for this defect, it could, no doubt, be made a 

 substitute for White Oak in tight cooperage. It is used to 

 some extent for oil barrels, largely for general construc- 

 tion work, and also for furniture and interior finish, and in 

 each case as a substitute for White Oak. 



It cannot be ascertained that any effort has been made 

 looking to its propagation ; but it would, no doubt, be sue- 



