Photo: Bruce Kirchoff, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Turkey Oak

Quercus laevis

Also called turkey-foot oak, Catesby oak, American turkey oak, Quercus catesbaei.

The oak of the southern sandhills, with deep-cut leaves shaped like a turkey's foot that turn red in fall and cling into winter.

Drought tolerantFall colorWildlife valueWinter interestStreet tree

Type: Small tree
Mature height: 20–50 ft
USDA zones: 7–9
Growth rate: Medium
Sun: Full
Soil moisture: Dry
Grows wild in: Sandy barrens and dry uplands
Native range: 8 states, north to Virginia, south to Florida and west to Louisiana
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Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia
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Turkey oak is a small red oak of the driest sand on the southeastern Coastal Plain, in pure stands or beneath longleaf pine. Its leaves hang edge-on to the sun, a habit thought to shield them from heat and water loss. Florida alone holds 9 to 10 million acres of it. Where turkey oak was cleared from sandhills, deer used the land far less, above all in the fall. Turkey oak can also serve as a street tree. Grow it on a hot, sandy ridge where other shade trees fail, or in a sandhill planting with longleaf pine and wiregrass.

Size, growth and what to expect

Turkey oak grows at a medium pace, about a foot and a half a year in our growth estimator. It has a relatively short life span. Expect 20 to 50 feet, with a crown 10 to 20 feet wide.

It flowers in April or late spring, and the acorns take two seasons to ripen, ready in September and October of the second year. They are three quarters of an inch to an inch long, a third covered by the cup. They are a major food of black bears, deer, bobwhite quail and wild turkeys in Florida.

It grows wild on dry sandhills and ridges of the Coastal Plain from southeast Virginia to central Florida and west to southeast Louisiana. The largest on record, near Branford, Florida, stood 83 feet tall.

How to grow Turkey Oak

Turkey oak wants full sun and deep, sharply drained sand, strongly acid and poor. It does not take wet soil, shade or salt spray. It spreads by underground runners, so do not plant it where suckers would be a nuisance. Set trees 15 feet apart, and keep each one 15 feet from a wall and more than 50 feet from overhead wires.

Saplings ship potted. The seedling sends down a long taproot early, and the tree is hard to move once it has one, so plant it young. Plant it dormant, from leaf fall until bud swell, in a hole wider than the pot and no deeper. Set the root flare at the soil line, put the sand back in, and keep the mulch clear of the trunk. Turkey oak acorns need 60 to 90 days of damp cold before they sprout, and they will not sprout once they dry out. Sow them in fall an inch deep under hardware cloth. For spring, hold them damp in the refrigerator for 60 to 90 days first.

Water every week or two through the first summer, then only in a long drought. NC State lists it as resistant to deer, but a tube or cage for the first two years still keeps rabbits off the young stem. Keep the mulch thin at the trunk so voles do not nest there, and prune only to keep one leader.

The flowers are wind pollinated, and an acorn crop wants another oak nearby. As a red oak it is highly susceptible to oak wilt, so prune only in the dormant season, to avoid the beetles that spread it. Acorn weevils can ruin much of a crop in some years. Grown trees bear acorns almost every year.

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

Sources (12)