Quercus laevis Southeastern Native when many shrubs have long

when many shrubs have long since finished

holding strong color into early fall when much of the border is fading

the droplets beading and rolling off a surface built to refuse them

As with all ornamental anises

Quercus laevis Southeastern Native when many shrubs have longTurkey oak earns the name from the leaf, three lobed and clawed and splayed exactly like the track a wild turkey leaves in sand, which is fitting, because sand is where these trees live. Quercus laevis is the signature oak of the deep sandhills, the droughty white sand ridges of the longleaf country from the Carolinas to the Gulf, ground so poor and so hot that most trees simply decline the invitation. They answer the heat with a trick worth knowing: