Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fagales > Fagaceae > Quercus > Quercus suber

Quercus suber (Cork Oak)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Quercus suber, commonly called the cork oak, is a medium-sized, evergreen oak tree in the section Quercus sect. Cerris. It is the primary source of cork for wine bottle stoppers and other uses, such as cork flooring. It is native to southwest Europe and northwest Africa.
View Wikipedia Record: Quercus suber

Infraspecies

Quercus suber f. clavata
Quercus suber f. suber

Attributes

Air Quality Improvement [1]  Low
Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Carbon Capture [1]  High
Shade Percentage [1]  79 %
Temperature Reduction [1]  Medium
Wind Reduction [1]  Medium-High
Dispersal Mode [5]  Hoarding, Autochory
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Monoecious
Janka Hardness [3]  2130 lbf (966 kgf) Hard
Leaf Type [2]  Evergreen
Lifespan [4]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Wind
Specific Gravity [6]  0.77
Structure [2]  Tree
Usage [2]  A mulch of the leaves repels slugs, grubs etc, though fresh leaves should not be used as these can inhibit plant growth. Oak galls are excrescences that are sometimes produced in great numbers on the tree and are caused by the activity of the larvae of different insects. The insects live inside these galls, obtaining their nutrient therein. When the insect pupates and leaves, the gall can be used as a rich source of tannin, that can also be used as a dyestuff; A fairly wind-tolerant tree, it can be used in shelterbelt plantings; Bark is the source of cork, it is much used for heat and sound insulation, flooring, floats etc. Trees are first harvested when they are 25 - 30 years old; The bark must be removed carefully so as not to harm the tree. A large tree can yield up to 1 tonne of cork. On a 10% moisture basis, the bark contains 16.9% tannin; Wood.
Height [2]  66 feet (20 m)
Width [2]  49 feet (15 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 7 Low Temperature: 0 F° (-17.8 C°) → 10 F° (-12.2 C°)
Hardiness Zone Maximum [1]  USDA Zone: 11 Low Temperature: 40 F° (4.4 C°) → 50 F° (10 C°)
Water Use [1]  Low
View Plants For A Future Record : Quercus suber

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Mutual (symbiont) 
Russula pseudoimpolita[10]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1i-Tree Species v. 4.0, developed by the USDA Forest Service's Northern Research Station and SUNY-ESF using the Horticopia, Inc. plant database.
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Wood Janka Hardness Scale/Chart J W Morlan's Unique Wood Gifts
♦ 4USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 5Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 6Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 7HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 8Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 9Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 10Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 11New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0