One of our most familiar trees. Abundantly planted; fairly common in the wild in bottomland forests. Similar to Water Oak (Q. nigra), which has clubbed leaves, and Darlington Oak (Q. hemisphaerica), which is semi-evergreen.

Leaves are narrowly lanceolate like those of Black Willow, but are bristle-tipped and lack teeth.

The bark is smooth on young trees and smaller branches, becoming shallowly ridged on larger trees. Bark of a medium-sized tree in Chapel Hill, NC.

Bark of a mature tree, Greenville, NC.

Hybrids of different species in the red oak group are not too unusual. This is an apparent hybrid Q. falcata x Q. phellos at Mason Farm in Chapel Hill, NC.

Here's an apparent hybrid Q. nigra x Q. phellos in Duke Forest, Durham Co., NC.

This possible hybrid between Q. phellos and Q. velutina strongly resembles Shingle Oak (Q. imbricaria), but lacks that species's uniformly soft-pubesence on the underside. This tree is in Raleigh, NC, 2 counties from the nearest known range of Shingle Oak in Virginia. There is some pubescence on the underside of the leaves, but it easily rubs off, just like that on Black Oak (Q. velutina) leaves.

Photo by Joseph Covington.

Some of the leaves of this tree have irregular lobes.

Raleigh, NC 6/11/06.

Acorn from the same tree. Photo by Joseph Covington.