Sand live Oak

a couple links

http://www.floridata.com/ref/Q/quer_gem.cfm

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Sand_live_oak/sandlive.htm

Thank you. It never ocurred to me that scrub oaks might actually go by a different name.

There are actually several oaks that go by the name of scrub oak. There is myrtle oak, chapman's oak, and another rarer species whose name I cannot remember, in addition to the sand live oak. Then there are Turkey Oaks and Bluejack oaks, which grow sometimes in very similar situations and also often have a "scrubby" appearance.

But all of the true scrub oaks--myrtle, chapman's, sand live, etc.--are extremely slow growing, and if you happen to have a suckering form of any of these they will grow even slower still (they put their energy into sprawling into thicket rather than growing up into a tree). Most of these oaks top out at 30 feet. In their natural environment scrub fires would cut them down every so often preventing them from reaching that size.

Sometimes when you see a burned or cleared scrub area you will notice the oaks return very fast, but this is because scrub oaks have massive sprawling root systems, and they come back from these roots after fires. If your oaks are just planted it will take them many, many years to grow into a forest. How many years? I'm not sure that anyone knows. Decades I would guess.

I think they are extremely interesting trees.

You can find more information about scrub oaks in Floridata's scrub gallery (google it and it should come up) and also Rufino Osorio's excellent book "A Gardener's Guide to Florida's Native Plants."

Bill