Chestnut Oak, Quercus Prinus

The chestnut oak, a beautiful and ornemental specie in the white oak group, Quercus sect. quercus. It is native to the eastern United States, where it is one of the most important ridgetop trees from southern Maine southwest to central Mississippi, with an outlying northwestern population in southern Michigan. It is sometimes called "rock oak" because of montane and other rocky habitats. As a consequence of its dry habitat and ridgetop exposure, it is not usually a large tree, typically 18–22m (60–70 ft) tall; occasional specimens growing in better conditions can however become large, with trees up to 40–43 m (130–140 ft) tall known. They tend to have a similar spread of 18–22m (60–70 ft).The chestnut oak is readily identified by its massively-ridged dark gray-brown bark, the thickest of any eastern North American oak. The leaves are 12–20 cm long and 6–10 cm broad, shallowly lobed with 10–15 rounded lobes on each margin; they are virtually identical to the leaves of swamp chestnut oak and chinkapin oak, but the trees can readily be distinguished by the bark, the chinkapin oak being a light ash-gray and somewhat peeling like the white oak and swamp chestnut oak being paler ash-gray and scaly. The acorns of the chestnut oak are 1.5–3 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, among the largest of native American oaks, surpassed in size only by the bur oak and possibly swamp chestnut oak. Chestnut oak trees are generally not the best timber trees because they are usually branched low and not very straight, but when they grow in better conditions, they are valuable for timber, which is marketed as 'mixed white oak.