When is an Oak Tree an Evergreen?

When it's a live oak!

One of my absolute favorite trees is the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana). They range from Virginia to Texas, mostly along the coast as they like moist sandy soil and flooding. I love them because they are huge, gnarly, excellent climbing trees that are green all through the winter.

Don't you just NEED to climb it? This is "The Big Tree" in Texas, about 500 years old and not even the oldest one!

Yes, they are an oak species (Quercus is the same genus as the bur and white oaks in the Midwest) that keeps its leaves all winter! It's wonderful! It makes all winter seem like early spring to someone who is used to snow and everything looking dead. The crazy part, though, is that they lose their leaves in the spring and grow new ones basically immediately, which means that springtime in Charleston (and anywhere else there are a lot of live oaks) looks like this:

But then also like this:

The live oaks do a neat trick of growing new leaves as the old ones fall so they never really look barren and dead even when dead leaves are strewn around their roots in huge piles. New leaves look like this:

You might recognize that as "not what oak leaves look like". They usually look like this:

http://justpict.com/image-white-oak-leaf.html

Live oak leaves are thick, leathery, waxy, unlobed, and much smaller than species like white and bur oaks. The thick waxiness helps them withstand salt spray in their coastal range. I couldn't find anything in my research as to why their leaves are shaped so differently (I looked). My best guess is that the adaptation helps them survive in the high winds of the coast. They are extremely sturdy and durable trees and in many areas are constantly windblown. I think large, thin, lobed leaves like other oaks would blow off, killing the tree even though it is strong enough to withstand it.

And they are extremely strong. They live for hundreds and hundreds of years in incredibly harsh conditions - windblown, salt-sprayed, surviving hurricanes and floods. They grow fast and they grow heavy and tough. Before they were largely ornamental shade trees, they were used for shipbuilding. In fact, the USS Constitution, nicknamed "Old Ironsides" was actually made of live oak. For context, it was launched in 1797, survived several battles at sea during the war of 1812, was active for nearly 100 years, and still sails - the oldest warship still afloat.

http://newenglandboating.com/

Whooops I digressed from Natural History Nerd to just plain History Nerd. Sorry about that! Anyway, the point is: live oak trees are the greatest. They are beautiful and wonderful and they live so long that they've collapsed spring and fall into the same season. There is basically nowhere better to be than up a live oak tree.