Quercus nigra
species of plant
Quercus nigra, the water oak, is an oak in the red oak group (Quercus sect. Lobatae), native to the eastern and south-central United States, found in all the coastal states from New Jersey to Texas, and inland as far as Oklahoma, Kentucky, and southern Missouri. It occurs in lowlands and up to 450 meters (1,480 feet) in elevation.
Other names include spotted oak, duck oak, punk oak, orange oak, and possum oak.
Description
Quercus nigra is a medium-sized deciduous tree, growing up to 30 meters (98 feet) tall with a trunk up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in diameter. Young trees have a smooth, brown bark that becomes gray-black with rough scaly ridges as the tree matures. The leaves are alternate, simple and tardily deciduous, remaining on the tree until mid-winter; they are 3–12 centimeters (1+1⁄4–4+3⁄4 inches) long and 2–6 cm (3⁄4–2+1⁄4 in) broad, variable in shape, most commonly shaped like a spatula being broad and rounded at the top and narrow and wedged at the base. The margins vary, usually being smooth to shallowly lobed, with a bristle at the apex and lobe tips. The tree is easy to identify by the leaves, which have a lobe that looks as if a drop of water is hanging from the end of the leaf. The top of each leaf is a dull green to bluish green and the bottom is a paler bluish-green.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Quercus nigra” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Quercus, nigra and species, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “species of plant” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4112855. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Quercus nigra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.