Southern Live Oak

This majestic evergreen grows forty to fifty feet tall and almost as wide with a broad, rounded canopy, horizontal branches, and thick, leathery, green leaves. During cold winters, the tree defoliates and new green leaves emerge in the spring. Its bark is dark and deeply furrowed at maturity. Southern live oak produces inconspicuous, tan, catkin-like flowers in the spring that are typical of most oak trees. After flowering, brownish-black acorns appear in abundance, which are sweet and edible, and are eaten by birds and other animals.Use it as a shade or specimen tree on golf courses, in front of large-scale buildings, along streets, around parking lots, and in parks as a screen, or planted in masses in wide-open spaces. Southern live oak is the designated state tree of Georgia. It is native to scrub lands, and coastal and inland wetlands throughout Virginia. This tree also grows natively in parts of Florida, Texas, and southeastern portions of the United States. It can also be found in isolated mountain areas of northeastern Mexico.