Willow Oak is a large, beautiful tree that is native from southeast New York & New Jersey down to northern Florida to east Texas & Oklahoma up into Missouri, growing in bottomlands and along water courses, ponds, and lakes, growing in moist to draining wet soils. It likes acid soils, definitely pH 6 to about 6.8, but the range is probably a little greater than that both ways. Its shiny leaves are simple and not lobed, to 5.5 inches long x 1 inch wide, looking sort of like a willow leaf that turns golden or orange brown in autumn. It grows about 1.5 to 2 feet/year. It should live at least 150 years and often over 200 years. It bears small acorns to about 1/2 inch long with a thin saucer-like cap every two years like other members of the Black Oak subgroup. It makes an excellent street or yard tree. Its root system is really fibrous and it does not really make a taproot, though nurseries will root prune it in the field for better success. It is offered by a good number of southern nurseries. I've seen wild specimens growing in wetland areas of southern and central Delaware. I've seen some great, large, planted specimens in landscapes in southeast Pennsylvania. If one grows this species in Zone 5, one must make sure that the selection of stock is that hardy, as I have never seen Willow Oak in my native northern Illinois, though Morton Arboretum is supposed to have some in their Oak Collection.

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Willow Oak's preferred growing environment is moist bottom land, but it will tolerate a range of soils. Once established, it also tolerates drought.

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