Common Name: oak
Type: Tree
Family: Fagaceae
Native Range: Central and eastern United States and Canada
Zone: 4 to 8
Height: 50.00 to 70.00 feet
Spread: 40.00 to 60.00 feet
Bloom Time: April to May
Bloom Description: Yellowish-green
Sun: Full sun
Water: Medium to wet
Maintenance: Low
Suggested Use: Shade Tree, Street Tree, Rain Garden
Flower: Insignificant
Leaf: Good Fall
Fruit: Showy
Tolerate: Erosion, Clay Soil, Wet Soil
Culture
Best grown in moist, rich, humusy, medium to wet soils in full sun. Tolerates some part shade but not full shade. Adapts to a wide range of soil conditions ranging from soggy soils on the edge of swampy areas and river banks to much drier upland ones.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Quercus × schuettei, commonly called Schuette’s oak, is a hybrid cross between Quercus macrocarpa (bur oak) and Quercus bicolor (swamp white oak). It is a medium-sized deciduous oak of the white oak group that typically grows in a conical form to 40-60’ tall with the crown broadening and rounding with age. It may be found in the wild as a naturally occurring hybrid scattered through locations where the ranges of the parent trees coincide (southern Ontario and Quebec south to Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma). Glossy green leaves (slightly smaller than those of bur oak) have about 10 rounded lobes with deep center sinuses often extending nearly to the midrib. Fall color is a yellowish-brown, sometimes tinged with red. Insignificant, monoecious, yellowish-green flowers in separate male and female catkins appear in spring as the leaves emerge. Rounded acorns (to 1 1/2” long) are partially enclosed within scaly hairy beige cups that enclose about 1/2 to 3/4 of the acorn. Acorns are abundant and an excellent source of food for wildlife.
Genus name comes from the classical Latin name for oak trees.
Specific epithet honors J.H. Schuette (1821-1908) who discovered this hybrid growing in the wild in northern Wisconsin in the late 1800s.
Problems
Schuette’s oak is considered to be a low-maintence tree with good pest resistance. Oaks in general are susceptible to a large number of diseases, including oak wilt, chestnut blight, shoestring root rot, anthracnose, oak leaf blister, cankers, leaf spots and powdery mildew. Potential insect pests include scale, oak skeletonizer, leaf miner, galls, oak lace bugs, borers, caterpillars and nut weevils.
Uses
A medium shade tree for moist landscape areas. Specimen or group. Lawns or parks. Street tree. Well suited to soggy soils. Riverbanks.