Swamp Chestnut Oak

Quercus michauxii

Secondary Name: Cow Oak,  Basket Oak

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: It is a medium-size to large tree that grows up to over 100 feet tall, with a trunk to over 6 feet in diameter, and a thick, scaly, loose, light-gray bark.

Range/Site Description:  Grows along the Atlantic Coastal Plain from New Jersey south to north Florida, and west to east Texas; its range extends up the Mississippi River Valley to Illinois and Ohio.  

Leaf: The leaves are deciduous, somewhat oval, and 4 to 9 inches long; they are short-pointed at the tip, tapering to rounded at the base, with numerous shallow lobes or rounded teeth along the edges, dark green, smooth above and softly hairy beneath. Leafstalks are 1 inch long.

Flower: Species is monoecious; male flowers are yellow-green long catkins (2 to 4 inches long); females are green to reddish, very small in leaf axils, appearing in mid-spring with the leaves.

Fruit: Acorn, 1 to 1 1/2 inches long, chestnut brown, bowl-shaped cup covers about 1/3 of nut, cap is rough scaly, stalk is short.

Bark: Similar to white oak, ashy gray, scaly, with age developing irregular furrows and becoming darker.

Wood: The wood is used in many kinds of construction; for agricultural implements, wheels, veneer, boards, fence posts, tight cooperage, baskets and fuel.

Similar Species: The swamp chestnut oak closely resembles the chestnut oak, Quercus prinus, and for that reason has sometimes been treated as a variety of that species

Interesting Facts:  Swamp chestnut oak acorns are eaten by white-tailed deer, wild hogs, wild turkey, black bear, squirrels, and chipmunks. The acorns are also eaten by cows.  

Southern Crabapple Malus angustifolia

Secondary Name: Narrow-leaf Crab Apple

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: Is a shrub or small tree, 20 to 30 feet in height, with a short trunk 8 to 10 inches in diameter; with rigid, spreading branches forming a broad, rounded, open crown.

Range/Site Description: Southern crab apple is commonly found from southern Virginia south to northern Florida, west to Louisiana, and north to Arkansas.

Leaf: Leaves are elliptical or oblong, blunt at tip, wavy sawtoothed, hairy when young; dull green above, paler underneath.

Flower: Pink to white; 1 inch diameter; early March; rose-like

Fruit: Fruit ¾-1” in diameter, like small apples; yellow-green, sour with long stalk. The fruit is not only sought by humans but is a favorite of most wildlife.

Bark: Gray or brown; furrowed into narrow scaly ridges

Wood: Its hard, heavy wood makes excellent tool handle, levers, and small wooden ware articles

Similar Species: Sweet Crabapple (Malus coronaria)

Interesting Facts: Southern Crabapple, is extremely versatile with a natural range that runs from the Great Lakes in the northern United States to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. This is excellent adaptability, especially to heat.

 

   

Pawpaw Asimina Triloba

Secondary Name: Custard Apple

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: A small tree seldom over 30 feet high with a trunk 8” or 10” in diameter, with straight, slender branches that give the tree an open, oval crown of large, light green leaves.

Range/Site Description: Pawpaw is found in rich woods near streams in extreme East Texas and in northeast Texas along the Red River, but does not grow abundantly anywhere, usually found as single trees or in small groves.

Leaf: Simple, alternate, 8” to 12” long and 3” to 6” wide, obovate or elliptical, thin, bright green above and paler below, odorous when crushed or bruised.

Flower: Borne in the leaf axils with the expanding leaves in spring, 1” to 2” across, six-petaled, greenish to a rich brownishpurple or maroon.

Fruit: A banana-shaped, oblong berry (a “pawpaw”), 3” to 6” long and 1” to 2.5” thick, containing a number of large, brown seeds. When ripe it falls to the ground, turning dark brown, although many animals never let them get this ripe. The deep yellow flesh is palatable, through some people do not care for its unique flavor.

Bark: Smooth and light brown on young trees and branches; on older trees becoming blotched with gray, and bearing a few small wart-like bumps.

Wood: Light, weak, and spongy, yellow in color, and is of no known commercial value. Occasionally used as a landscape specimen.

Similar Species: Smallflower pawpaw (Asimina parviflora) is a similar shrub with very small flowers in southeast Texas; spicebush (Lindera benzoin) has leaves only 2” to 4” long; pyramid magnolia (Magnolia pyramidata) is a small tree with distinctly ear-lobed leaf bases.

Interesting Facts: Chilled pawpaw fruit was a favorite dessert of George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson planted it at Monticello, his home in Virginia.

Laurel Oak Quercus laurifolia

Secondary Name: Darlington oak, swamp laurel oak and diamond leaf oak

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: Laurel oak tree is a member of the red oak group that grows from 40 to 60 feet tall and the same in width with a round crown.

Range/Site Description: Laurel oaks grow from east Texas through the southern portions of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, as well as throughout much of the state of Florida; their range extends through North and South Carolina to the southeastern tip of Virginia.

Leaf: The leaves are small, narrow, 2 - 4" long and pointed. Some of the leaves are irregularly lobed. Dark green leaves, often undulating and sometimes with a few shallow lobes. Leaves begin falling in the fall replaced by florescent green leaves in the spring.

Flower: Yellow-green flowers bloom in March and April, with the male and female flowers growing in separate clusters. The female flowers give way to acorns measuring up to 1 inch long that remain on the tree for two years. Oblong leaves that are dark green on the top and pale green on the underside measure 2 to 4 inches long.

Fruit: The acorns on the laurel oaks are nearly round, about ½” long, covered ⅓-to-½ by the cap, and borne singly or paired on short stalks (virtually sessile).

Bark: dark grayish to blackish and not as furrowed as the live oak.

Wood: Is used in western states for shingles

Similar Species: Live oak and laurel oak are similar in the general shape of the trees and are hardy in much of the same area.

Interesting Facts: The name derives from the similarity of the foliage to Grecian Laurel, a Mediterranean shrub.

American Beauty Berry Callicarpa americana L. Secondary Name: French mulberry, sourbush, bunchberry, or purple beauty-berry

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: Most often grows 3-5 ft. tall and usually just as wide, It can reach 9 ft. in height in favorable soil and moisture conditions. It has long, arching branches and yellow-green fall foliage, but its most striking feature is the clusters of glossy, iridescent-purple fruit (sometimes white) which hug the branches at leaf axils in the fall and winter.

Range/Site Description: This plant is distributed throughout the southeastern United States from Texas and Oklahoma east to Maryland. It also grows in the Caribbean and northern Mexico.

Leaf: Leaves in pairs or in threes, blades half as wide as long and up to 9 inches long, ovate to elliptic, pointed or blunt at the tip and tapered to the base; margins coarsely toothed except toward the base and near the tip, teeth pointed or rounded; lower surface of young leaves covered with branched hairs.

Flower: Flowers small, pink, in dense clusters at the bases of the leaves, clusters usually not exceeding the leaf petioles.

Fruit: Fruit distinctly colored, rose pink or lavender pink, berrylike, about 1/4 inch long and 3/16 inch wide, in showy clusters, persisting after the leaves have fallen.

Bark: Bark light brown on the older wood, reddish brown on younger wood. Bark smooth, with elongate, raised corky areas (lenticels); twigs round to 4 sided, covered with branched hairs visible under a l0x hand lens.

Interesting Facts: In the early 20th century, farmers would crush the leaves and place them under the harnesses of horses and mules to repel mosquitoes.

Pecan Carya illinoinensis

Secondary Name:  Illinois nut

Leaf Type: Deciduous

Texas native: Yes

Firewise: Yes

Tree Description: This majestic tree is the largest of the hickories -- growing 70 to 100 feet high -- with a symmetrical, broadly oval crown.

Range/Site Description:    

Leaf: Alternate, compound, 12-20 inches long with 9-17 that are 3-8 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. On top they are smooth to slightly hairy an dark yellow green, slightly paler beneath.

Flower: The flowers are wind-pollinated, and monoecious, with staminate and pistillatecatkins on the same tree; the male catkins are pendulous, up to 18 cm (7.1 in) long; the female catkins are small, with three to six flowers clustered together.

Fruit: A pecan, like the fruit of all other members of the hickory genus, is not truly a nut, but is technically a drupe, a fruit with a single stone or pit, surrounded by a husk.

Bark: Thick, light brown to reddish brown, with narrow, irregular fissures, flattened and scaly.

Wood: Is used in agricultural implements, baseball bats, hammer handles, furniture, wall paneling, flooring, carvings, and firewood.

Similar Species:

Interesting Facts: Pecans first became known to Europeans in the 16th century. The first Europeans to come into contact with pecans were Spanish explorers in what is now Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana.