Swamp Chestnut Oak

Good seed crops occur at intervals of 3-5 years with poor to fair production in between. Swamp chestnut oak trees are deciduous and have leaves that vary from four to eight inches in length, are downy beneath and turn a rich crimson in the fall. The acorns are sweet and serve as food to wildlife. The Swamp Chestnut Oak tree, Quercus michauxii, is known also as a basket oak for the baskets made from its wood, and cow oak because cows eat the acorns. A good shade tree. Swamp chestnut oak trees are well-formed and become quite large (80 feet tall) with a narrow crown. The high quality wood is used in all kinds of construction and for implements. One of the important timber trees of the South, it grows on moist and wet loamy soils of bottom lands, along streams and borders of swamps. Swamp Chestnut Oak strongly prefers soils that are moist, permanently moist, or permanently wet, and tolerates standing water (as in periodically inundated floodplains) for several weeks at a time. ... additional information