The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Quercus palustris
Also called Water oak, Swamp Oak, Swamp Pin Oak, Pin Oak, Swamp Spanish Oak, Oak, Water Spanish Oak
Pin oak is a medium-sized deciduous tree from the eastern and central United States and far southern Ontario, grown for its shape and fast, pollution-tolerant growth. The key to growing it is full sun and moist, acidic soil, since it struggles with alkaline soils.
Quercus palustris, also called pin oak, swamp oak, or swamp Spanish oak, is a tree in the red oak section (Quercus sect. Lobatae) of the genus Quercus. Pin oak is one of the most commonly used landscaping oaks in its native range due to its ease of transplant, relatively fast growth, and pollution tolerance.
Q. palustris is mainly distributed in the eastern and central United States from Connecticut in the northeast, west to eastern Oklahoma and Kansas, and south to Georgia. It is also native in the extreme south of Ontario, Canada.
In its native range, pin oak is the most commonly used landscaping oak along with northern red oak due to its ease of transplant, relatively fast growth, and pollution tolerance. However, as it is naturally adapted to moist, acidic soils, it may develop a condition known as iron chlorosis on less suitable locations, causing the tree to shed leaves during the growing season and rot from the top down. Mature pin oaks are often too big to treat and this nutrient deficiency on alkaline soil may eventually kill them. The drooping lower branches can also be a problem, interfering with access for traffic and pedestrians.
Quercus affinis · Coast Live Oak · White Oak · Golden Oak · Scrub oak · Brant's oak · Turkey Oak · Canyon Live Oak · Scarlet Oak · Daimyo oak · Blue oak · Leather oak
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Quercus palustris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
