As a northerner, I have not seen this mostly southern tree; only once at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, just north of the city. It certainly is a beautiful tree! Its glossy leaves are 6 to 10 inches long and 1 to 4 inches wide with 5 to 9 rounded lobes separated by broad, irregular sinuses, and turn a rich yellow-brown in autumn. The broad, nearly round acorn is about 1/2 to 1 inch wide and is covered almost completely with a scaly cup, thus its common name. The gray-brown, scaly bark is similar to that of the more common and widespread White Oak. It grows in bottomlands from southern New Jersey down the coastal region to northern Florida to east Texas up to Missouri & southern Illinois. It develops a shallow root system, even though seedlings have a taproot for a little while. It grows a little under to about a foot/year and lives to about 400 years. The famous Dr. Michael Dirr has been recommending it as a good landscape tree that is easier to transplant than most of its white oak group kin.

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