Blackjack oak is a common timber tree in forests that have been badly burned or are growing on the poorest soils. Rugged but not worth much for lumber, it is often one of the first trees to be used as fuel, which prevents more glorious trees from such destruction. Quercus marilandica, the blackjack oak, is a small oak, one of the red oak group Quercus sect. It is native to the eastern and central United States, from Long Island to Florida, west as far as Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. There are reports of a few isolated populations in southern Michigan, but these appear to represent introductions. Post Oak-Blackjack Forest In the center of the state towering trees bow out to the cross-timbers-dense, gnarled patches of drought-resistant post and blackjack oaks. In 1832, Washington Irving called them 'forests of cast iron.' Later, cowboys driving herds along the Chisholm and Shawnee trails gave this forest its existing name. Blackjack Oak The blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica) is also known as the Jack oak, black oak, and barren oak. A small deciduous tree that grows 20 to 30 feet (maximum 90 feet) with a trunk diameter of 1 foot or less. It is similar to the post oak which also grows with blackjack oak, but the leaf lobes are more pronounced and not bristle-tipped.

1. What Does Blackjack Oak Look Like
2. What Is The Range Of The Tree Blackjack Oak

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Blackjack Oak
Latin: Quercus marilandica

This summer’s drought has been tough on trees. The drive between Fayetteville and Little Rock is punctuated with whole hillsides of brown and seemingly lifeless trees.
While these trees - mostly oaks, hickories, dogwoods and elms - look bad from a distance, most will survive the rigors of the 2000 drought without much problem. Summers like this help one appreciate the really tough trees such as the blackjack oak.
A kid I knew in my youth was scrappy and always getting into fights. His favorite saying was, 'When you’re ugly you gotta be tough.' Mother Nature has applied this simple truism to the blackjack oak because it is one ugly, but tough tree.
Blackjacks are found throughout most of the eastern woodlands, occupying sites with soil too poor or dry for oaks with more stature and substance to flourish. It was one of the few tree species to venture onto the Great Plains before white settlement, occupying a region from central Texas northeast through Oklahoma known as the cross timber region.
The blackjack is a small, gnarly tree usually under 35 feet tall with a round crown and leathery, three-lobed leaves. It is a member of the red oak tribe and has the characteristic leaf spine at the end of each lobe. The leaves hang on the tree through the winter to be pushed off by new leaves the following spring. It’s trunk is often deeply furrowed and black, giving it a brooding wintertime appearance.
The Rodney Dangerfield of oaks, blackjacks are given but one use - firewood - by most authors who seem overly hung up on the notion that all oaks reach the pinnacle of their glory at the saw mill.
It might be instructive to speculate on the long term effects of this summer’s drought on the survival and health of the forest. As bad as the trees look, most will survive the drought because they have been forced into an early dormancy to conserve water.
Unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. The oaks of our eastern forest are systemically infected with a fungus called Hypoxylon canker - sort of the athlete’s foot of the oak kingdom.
Survey work conducted by Dr. Pat Finn at the UofA following the severe drought of 1980 showed that about 80 percent of the oaks of northwest Arkansas have this systemic infection. This fungus is usually benign and does no apparent harm, but droughts cause it to flare up. Certain trees -- with no discernable pattern -- are killed by the multiplying hyphae of the fungus as it produces its spores on fungal mats under the bark of the tree. These fungal mats push the bark off which accumulates at the base of the tree like a rain of deadly dandruff.
For the health of the forest, Hypoxylon is a beneficial fungus because it thins the stand of trees. In 1980, the disease killed about 12 percent of the oaks in some areas, thus allowing the survivors more opportunity to obtain water.
Unfortunately most of us that build our homes in the woodland have difficulty taking the long view on ecology when the tree in front of our house is the one that dies. About all that can be done to ward off the effects of this problem is to keep the drought at bay by watering before conditions become too severe.
Blackjacks are not in the nursery trade and many who have them on their property treat them with little respect. But, before dismissing this tough tree as a scrub oak and relegating it to the woodpile, reflect on its toughness and adaptability under adverse conditions.

By: Gerald Klingaman, retired
Extension Horticulturist - Ornamentals
Extension News - September 22, 2000

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Black Oak vs Red Oak

Black oak and Red oak are two out of the hundreds kinds of species of oak tree. These two oaks are commonly used as a timber or wood in a lumber store for used in commercial purposes because of its sturdiness and cohesiveness.

Black Oak

Black oak (Quercus velutina) or Eastern Black oak is a rather a small oak tree compared to other oaks with a height only up to 25 meters and 0.9 meters in its diameter. In younger black oak trees, the barks is uniform and the color is gray, but when it matures the color would turn to black and getting thicker and has some wrinkles on it.

Red Oak

Red oak (Quercus rubra) is a little bit taller having a height that reaches 43 meters and the diameter of the trunk is about 0.5-1 meter. The red oaks grow rapidly that it can reach around 5-6 meters already on its 10th year. You would distinguish the red oak from others by its shiny barks that has some stripes down to the trunk.

Difference between Black Oak and Red Oak

Black oaks when compared to the red oaks are relatively small. While black oaks can reach its maximum height at about 82 feet, the red oaks on the other hand reaches up to 141 feet. In terms of barks, the color of the black oak tree is from red-orange to brown whereas the color of the bark of red oaks is light gray. The wood of a red oak tree is very valuable since it is used mainly for building constructions, cabinets, and other furniture. Compared to the red oak, black oak is used generally in floors.

These two kinds of oaks are very good materials for constructing a house. They are both durable, strong, and would last for many years. In addition, the black and red oaks are somewhat immune to wood-eating insects like termites because of tannin content in these trees.

What Does Blackjack Oak Look Like

What Is The Range Of The Tree Blackjack Oak