The Southern Red Oak is a handsome large tree that is common in upland dry soils of many areas of the South into the Mid-Atlantic, and it can also be in lowland sites, as along creeks. Its native range is from southern New Jersey down into northern Florida to east Texas up to southern Illinois. Its lustrous leaves are 5 to 9 inches long that are 3 to 7 lobed often but not always with the terminal lobe longer than the others. The rounded acorns are small of about 1/2 inch long. I've seen quite a few in the sandy, acid soils of southern and central Delaware and some in a few spots in the mostly clay soils of southeast Pennsylvania. It is used as a timber tree with good quality wood. Its smaller acorns are loved by wildlife. It usually grows about 1 to 1.5 feet/year and lives about 100 to 150 years. It is noted as low root damage potential. It is resistant to the soil fungus of Verticillium Wilt that can kill some various species of woody plants. It is sold only by a very few native plant nurseries as Mossy Cup Native Nurseries. Some forestry companies grow it for forestry use. There are two natural varieties of this species based on the form of the leaves. The regular variety (Q. falcata falcata) has smaller leaves that are 5 to 7 lobed while the Cherrybark or Swamp Southern Red Oak (Q. falcata pagodifoila) has larger leaves with 5 to 11 lobes and some leaves can look similar to Northern Red Oak. The second variety has about the same range except it is not north of Virginia or the southern Delmarva Penninsula. I have found the Cherrybark variety growing in southern Delaware and two trees planted in southeast PA, just across a large creek from two other trees of the regular variety in southeast PA.

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