A Southern tree with slender twigs and narrow leaves like those of a
willow, surprises us by bearing acorns! It is the willow oak, a
beautiful, graceful tree for shade and for avenue planting. The tree
naturally chooses wet ground, but it thrives where the soil is deep and
well drained. I remember a fine large willow oak in John Bartram’s garden
in Philadelphia, and a young tree in the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. This
little one grows rapidly, but the frost nips its twigs in the winter. The
species grows wild from New York southward, just back from the sea coast,
to Texas. In swampy land, it is found from Missouri southward.
Willow oak acorns are downy, yellow-brown, and set in shallow
saucer-shaped cups. The kernel is orange-yellow, and bitter. Half-grown
acorns are found with the ripe ones on these trees, and the dark, rough
bark agrees with others of the Black Oak Group. Though the leaves have
rarely a side lobe, but are mostly narrow and plain-margined, the tip
ends in a spine, as all black oak leaves should.