Live oak (Quercus virginiana): what the agencies record

This page reports what US federal publications say about one tree. It does not identify trees from descriptions or photos and does not say what should be done with any tree. The family overview, tree species in the agency records, explains the sources and holds the comparison table.

At a glance

Item	What the source records
Scientific name	Quercus virginiana Mill., beech family; Silvics also describes two varieties, Texas live oak (var. fusiformis) and sand live oak (var. geminata)
Other names	Virginia live oak (Silvics)
Native status, USDA PLANTS	Native in the lower 48 states
Size, Silvics	Never attains great height, but the crown may span 46 m (150 ft) or more; open-grown specimens may have trunks 200 cm (79 in) in diameter and average 15 m (50 ft) in height
Green weight of the wood, NRS-38	76 lb per cubic foot, without bark

Native range and sites

The Silvics of North America handbook (Agriculture Handbook 654, volume 2, 1990) calls live oak evergreen, with a variety of forms from shrubby or dwarfed to large and spreading depending on the site. It records the tree in the lower Coastal Plain of the Southeastern United States, from southeastern Virginia south to Georgia and Florida including the Florida Keys, west to southern and central Texas, with scattered populations in southwestern Oklahoma and the mountains of northeastern Mexico. The handbook says live oak nearly always grows on sandy soils, that its resistance to salt spray and high soil salinity makes it a dominant species in the live oak woodland of the Atlantic and Gulf barrier islands, that it is present in nearly every habitat in Florida from sandhills to hammocks, and that in Louisiana it is the dominant species on well-drained ridges bordering coastal marshes. Annual precipitation across the range varies from 810 mm (32 in) in Texas to 1,650 mm (65 in) along the Gulf Coast.

Flowers, acorns and use

Silvics describes live oak as monoecious, with flowers produced every spring from March through May, and long, tapered, dark brown to black acorns that mature in September of the first year and fall before December. Birds and animals eat the sweet acorns. The handbook says live oak is fast-growing and easily transplanted when young, so it is used widely as an ornamental and shade tree because of its low, wide-spreading crown, and that growth and yield information has never been developed because the species is of little commercial importance except as an ornamental. On roots it says there is no published information, but the ability of live oak to grow and mature on sites subject to hurricane-force winds suggests it is a deep-rooted species.

Wood

Silvics calls the wood very heavy and strong but little used as of the 1990 handbook, and says that during the era of wooden ships it was used extensively in shipbuilding because of its hardness and strength. The Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) names live oak as one of the main species used in constructing the warship USS Constitution, and its Table 5-3b has a row for live oak, shown below. The handbook lists no side hardness figure for it.

Wood Handbook Table 5-3b	Specific gravity	Modulus of rupture (lbf per square inch)	Side hardness (lbf)
Green	0.80	11,900	Not listed
At 12% moisture content	0.88	18,400	Not listed

The Wood Handbook states that specific gravity is based on oven-dry weight and the volume when green or at 12% moisture content. The green weight of the wood without bark is in the NRS-38 table, the same figure used in the log weight calculator.

Disease, pests and damage the handbook names

Silvics (1990) names these agents by the names it used.

Fire and cold. Young live oak is highly susceptible to fire; the handbook says even a light ground fire can kill its thin bark and expose the trunk to insects and fungi, and freezing temperatures can also damage it.
Live oak decline. A wilt disease the handbook attributes to Ceratocystis fagacearum; it reports thousands of trees dying each year in Texas, suspects it in other Southern states and calls it a potentially serious problem. The guides oak wilt and oak wilt by state and province cover the disease and where it is listed.
Leaf blister. Caused by Taphrina caerulescens, which the handbook says periodically results in considerable defoliation.
Root borer. Archodontes melanopus, which commonly attacks the roots of young oaks on the Atlantic Coast and may prevent normal form.
Mistletoe and Spanish moss. In some localities mistletoe (Phoradendron) grows on the branches, covered in mistletoe on the tree. Spanish moss, though an epiphyte, may damage trees because it accumulates in great abundance and reduces the light reaching the interior and lower parts of the crown.

The guide on reporting a pest in the United States and the Canada reporting page give the offices that take sightings of regulated pests. Who may apply pesticides is in pesticide licences by country.