Quercus imbricaria Michx.
Growth form: Tree, 10 - 18 m tall, trunk 30 cm - 0.6 m in diameter. Form: open and rounded with slender branches. Bark gray and smooth, turning light grayish brown and shallowly fissured with age. Twigs shiny dark green, becoming brown. Buds shiny brown, 3 - 4 mm long, egg-shaped with pointed tips, scales with very tiny hairs along margin. Each terminal bud is surrounded by a cluster of lateral buds. Leaves alternate, short-stalked, shiny and dark green above, paler and hairy beneath, 13 - 18 cm long, 4 - 7 cm wide, narrow oblong, bristle-tipped, non-toothed to wavy. Leaves turn brown in fall and hold through winter on young trees. Flowers either male or female, found on the same tree (monoecious), yellow male flowers borne on hanging catkins 5 - 7 cm long, greenish yellow female flowers borne in clusters of two to three near leaf axils. Fruit an acorn, maturing in two seasons, solitary or in pairs, with a stalk to 1.2 cm long. The cup is thin and bowl-shaped, covering one-third to half of the nut, with reddish brown scales that are appressed and downy. Nut dark brown, 1.2 - 1.6 cm long, almost spherical, often with very thin longitudinal stripes. Imbricaria comes from the Latin word imbrex, meaning "overlapping in order," like tiles or shingles. [from vPlants.org, accessed 21 December 2010].
Locally common in dry woods or near eroded farmland, also inhabits floodplains, bottomlands, and moist, fertile slopes. [from vPlants.org, accessed 21 December 2010]
Pioneers used the wood of this species to make shingles or shakes. [from vPlants.org, accessed 21 December 2010].