Description: Large tree; conic and often gaunt when young, soon broad; old trees hugely domed from short, straight, massive bole, usually dividing 2m up; branches straight, radiating. Large sprouts at base of some trees.

Height: 20-25 m
Diameter: 1.8-2.8 m

Leaves: Alternate; very variable in size and lobing but usually oblong-elliptic and acute in outline; 12-22 cm long (30 × 20 cm on strong sprouts and 24 × 12 cm on young trees), broad cuneate, to the 2(5) cm petiole which has a swollen reddish base (dark pink petiole and main veins on some big leaves). 4-5 lobes each side, 4-5 cm deep, shallower in some big leaves, each with 1-3 large teeth with 3 mm whisker at the tip. dark matt green above, pale matt and greyish beneath, sometimes with minute tufts in vein axils. When first unfolded, the leaves are a clear bright yellow for three weeks. Autumn colour starts uniformly over crown, young trees usually a good deep red, some older trees yellow and brown on each leaf, some cigar-brown all over, some deep red. A few young trees retain dead leaves all over the crown, but most trees shed every leaf before December.

Bark: Smooth, silvery grey, sometimes with a few large warts; old trees variable: some silvery grey with a few fissures, some brown-grey, some shallowly fissured into small rough plates. Shoots dark brown, stout, glabrous, ribbed. Bud ovoid, pointed, dark brown.

Flowers: Male catkins slender, 5-8 cm; female flowers in axils of leaves on new shoots, two on 5 mm peduncle; dark red, 2 mm ovoid. Flowers in May, before leaves, not usually before 50 years of age.

Acorns: First year acorns scattered along two-year shoot on short stalks, flat-globose, pale brown, 3 mm. Ripe acorn 2 × 2 cm, flat-based ovoid, base recessed in centre, dark red-brown. Cup on stout stalk 1 cm long; 1.5-1.8 cm across, very shallow, incurved at rim, many layers of prettily patterned scales, smooth, pale pink-brown with purple margins.

Habitat: Mixed forests with pines, maples, hemlock, usually on north and east aspects of lower and middle slopes, pure stands very rare.

Range: Canada and USA bounded in north by a line from Nova Scotia to Ontario, south to Louisiana and east to the Atlantic coast in N Carolina.

The fastest growing of all oaks, seedlings to 2-3m in five years. Biggest, in Ohio valley, to 50 m × 4.5 m. Fairly shade-tolerant, though less so than Hemlocks and Maples. Introduced to UK about 1739.

Information: Mitchell (1978), Leathart (1991), Macdonald (1984)

Source: Hayes Garden Centre, Ambleside, Cumbria.

Purchased: 1993.05.19ish, one pot-grown specimen at c 1m

Planted: 1993.05.23 far apex of triangle, US area/ bottom strip.

Progress: this is certainly not proving to be the fastest growing of all oaks with us, barely making any height in the first five growing seasons after it was planted. It took a serious check for a while after planting, but does seem to be looking better in 1998, possibly as a result of the mild winter 1997/8. It is spreading wide, but the highest branches reach upwards to 4.6m by 2004.09.27. The chief appeal however, is the excellent autumn colour, if only for a few days before the leaves are blown off.

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