Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor)
- Family: Beech (Fagaceae)
- Flowering: April-May.
- Field Marks: This is the only coarsely toothed oak in the white oak group that has the acorns borne on stalks at least one inch long.
- Habitat: Bottomland woods, swamps, along streams.
- Habit: Tree to 70 feet tall, with a trunk diameter up to 3 feet; crown rounded and broad.
- Bark: Gray-brown, deeply furrowed, becoming flaky.
- Buds: Clustered at the tips of the twigs, ellipsoid to spherical, yellow-brown, smooth or with a few hairs at the tip, up to 1/8 inch long.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, usually broadest above the middle, coarsely round-toothed or sometimes with a few shallow lobes, smooth and somewhat hairy on the upper surface, white and softly hairy on the lower surface, up to 6 inches long, up to 4 inches broad; leaf stalks up to 1 inch long, smooth or slightly hairy.
- Flowers: Male and female borne separately, but on the same tree, appearing when the leaves begin to unfold, minute, without petals, the male flowers in slender, drooping spikes, the female flowers in groups of 2-4.
- Fruits: Acorns in pairs, on stalks 1 inch long or longer, the nut ovoid, pale brown, 1-1 1/2 inches long, enclosed about 1/3 its length by the cup, the cup thick, light brown, hairy, roughened.
- Notes: The wood of this species is used for interior finishing, cabinets, fuel, and fence posts.
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