Chinkapin oak
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHI : Chinkapin oak
The Chinkapin Oak (Quercus muhlenbergii) is an oak in the white oak group (Quercus sect. Quercus). It is native to eastern North America, from Vermont and southern Ontario west to Iowa, south to northwest Florida and eastern Texas, with disjunct populations in west Texas and southeast New Mexico, and eastern Mexico from Coahuila south to Hidalgo. It is occasionally seen outside its native range with examples at Ottawa, Canada, Raleigh, North Carolina and Lake Worth, Florida.
It is a deciduous tree reaching 30 m tall (exceptionally up to 50 m), with a rounded crown and thin, scaly or flaky bark on the trunk. The leaves resemble those of a chestnut, coarsely toothed, 5-15 cm long and 4-8 cm broad. The acorns are 1.5-2 cm long, and mature in about 6 months after pollination.
The scientific name honors Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (1753-1815), a Lutheran pastor and amateur botanist in Pennsylvania. Because the name may be spelled "Mühlenberg" with an umlaut over the "u", the scientific name is commonly spelled muehlenbergii. The Flora of North America, however, uses the spelling muhlenbergii.
See also
External links
- [Flora of North America: Quercus muhlenbergii]
- [Quercus muehlenbergii images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.