Tree Talk: Chestnut Oak

New year, new oak!! This Tree Talk highlights Quercus montana, chestnut oak. It is also called rock oak because of its typical ridgetop habitat. You may have learned it as Quercus prinus, but that name which Linnaeus gave the species hundreds of years ago may have been given to swamp chestnut oak instead; the correct identity of the type specimen is up for debate. So we typically now use Q. montana for chestnut oak and Q. michauxii for swamp chestnut oak.

Name confusion aside, chestnut oak is a wonderful species that plays an important role in the canopy of ridgetop forests, where most other species cannot thrive in the thin, rocky soils. It is relished by wildlife and foresters alike, but like many other oaks, chestnut oak regeneration is scarce in forests that have been managed poorly and/or have overabundances of deer.

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Recorded on 1/2/22 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania by Allyson "Rocky" Davis.