Plant Guide > Trees > Oaks > Turkey Oak Tree

Turkey Oak Tree

The Turkey Oak (Quercus Catesbaei, Michx.) grows most abundantly, and reaches 60 feet in height, in the high lands bordering bays and river mouths, along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. It follows the Gulf coast to Louisiana, but is rare west of Florida. It is an important fuel in the regions it inhabits, but is little known to lumbermen. Generally a small tree, 20 to 35 feet high, it may be distinguished from the Spanish oak by the greater size and breadth of its leaves, and by the teeth that generally adorn the tapering, triangular lobes. The leaves are thick and stiff; those of Spanish oak are thin and flexible.

Turkey Oak (Quercus cerris), of Europe, is planted in our Southern States. It has somewhat the form and symmetry of the beech in its lusty youth. Its foliage is dark, with greyish linings; the acorn 1 1/2 inches long, with a large mossy cup that halfway swallows it. This is the "wainscot oak" of English builders.

Japanese and Chinese oaks feel at home in the Eastern States of America, and are now coming in, to the enrichment of our horticulture and the delight of landscape gardeners. The crispness and vigour of the foliage make these trees strikingly handsome. Quercus variabilis has leathery, dark green chestnutlike leaves, with white woolly linings. Quercus dentata, with toothed margins, in one variety cut into narrow fingers almost to the midrib, is notable for the size of its leathery, lustrous leaves. They are often a foot in length. Another Japanese favourite is Quercus glandulifera, a half-evergreen shrub, whose chestnut-like leaves are set with glandular teeth. This is half hardy when planted in New England.