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Swamp Chestnut Oak (Quercus michauxii)

• Family: Beech (Fagaceae)
• Flowering: April-May.
• Field Marks: This oak possesses leaves with coarse teeth but no lobes and a hairy lower surface that is usually somewhat velvety to the touch. The cup of the acorn is at least 1 inch across.
• Habitat: Low woods, swamps, sloughs, bayous, along streams.
• Habit: Tree up to 100 feet tall, with a trunk diameter up to 6 feet and a rounded crown.
• Bark: Gray or silvery white, scaly.
• Leaves: Alternate, simple, obovate, pointed at the tip, rounded or tapering to the base, coarsely toothed along the edges, densely hairy and velvety on the lower surface, up to 10 inches long, up to 6 inches broad.
• Flowers: Male and female borne separately, but on the same tree, the male crowded into long, slender, spikes; the female few in a cluster.
• Sepals: 0.
• Petals: 0.
• Stamens: 5.
• Pistils: Ovary inferior.
• Fruits: Acorns solitary or paired, with or without short stalks, the nut ovoid to ellipsoid, brown, up to 1 1/2 inches long, enclosed about 1/3 its length by the cup; the cup thick, hairy, at least 1 inch across.
• Notes: This species is sometimes known as basket oak or cow oak. The acorns are relatively sweet and are a source of food for wildlife.