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LIVE OAK
(Quercus Virginiana)

The history of this live oak is a reversal of the history of almost every other important forest tree of the United States. It seems to be the lone exception to the rule that the use of a certain wood never decreases until forced by scarcity. There was a time when hardly any wood in this country was in greater demand than this, and now there is hardly one in less demand. The decline has not been the result of scarcity, for there has never been a time when plenty was not in sight. A few years ago, several fine live oaks were cut in making street changes in New Orleans, and a number of sound logs, over three feet in diameter, were rolled aside, and it was publicly announced that anyone who would take them away could have them. No one took them. It is doubtful if that could happen with timber of any other kind.

The situation was different 120 years ago. At that time live oak was in such demand that the government, soon after the adoption of the constitution, became anxious lest enough could not be had to meet the requirements of the navy department. The keels of the first war vessels built by this government were about to be laid, and the most necessary material for their construction was live oak. The vessels were to be of wood, of course; and their strength and reliability depended upon the size and quality of the heavy braces used in the lower framework. These braces were called knees and were crooked at right angles. They were hewed in solid pieces, and the largest weighed nearly 1,000 pounds. No other wood was as suitable as live oak, which is very strong, and it grows knees in the form desired. The crooks produced by the junction of large roots with the base of the trunk were selected, and shipbuilders with saws, broadaxes, and adzes cut them in the desired sizes and shapes.

When the building of the first ships of the navy was undertaken, the alarm was sounded that live oak was scarce, and that speculators were buying it to sell to European governments. Congress appropriated large sums of money and bought islands and other lands along the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, where the best live oak grew. In Louisiana alone the government bought 37,000 live oak trees, as well as large numbers in Florida and Georgia. In some instances the land on which the trees stood was bought.

Ship carpenters were sent from New England to hew knees for the first vessels of the navy. The story of the troubles and triumphs of the contractors and knee cutters is an interesting one, but too long for even a summary here; suffice it that in due time the vessels were finished. The history of those vessels is almost a history of the early United States navy. Among their first duties when they put to sea was to fight French warships, when this country was about to get into trouble with Napoleon. They then fought the pirates of North Africa, and there one of the ships was burned by its own men to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy. “Old Ironsides,” another of the live oak vessels, fought fourteen ships, one at a time, during the war of 1812, and whipped them all. Another of the vessels was less fortunate. It was lost in battle, in which its commander, Lawrence, was killed, whose last words have become historic: “Don’t give up the ship.” Another came down to the Civil war and was sunk in Chesapeake bay.

The invention of iron vessels ended the demand for live oak knees. The government held its land where this timber grew for a long time, but finally disposed of most of it. Part of that owned in Florida was recently incorporated in one of the National Forests of that state.

Live oak is a tree of striking appearance. It prefers the open, and when of large size its spread of branches often is twice the height of the tree. Its trunk is short, but massy, and of enormous strength; otherwise it could not sustain the great weight of its heavy branches. Some of the largest limbs are nearly two feet in diameter where they leave the trunk, and are fifty feet long, and some are seventy-five feet in length. Probably the only tree in this country with a wider spread of branches is the valley oak of California. The live oak’s trunk is too short for more than one sawlog, and that of moderate length. The largest specimens may be seventy feet high and six or seven feet in diameter, and yet not good for a sixteen-foot log. The enormous roots are of no use now. When land is cleared of this oak, the stumps are left to rot.

The range of live oak extends 4,000 miles or more northeast and southwest. It begins on the coast of Virginia and ends in Central America. It is found in Lower California and in Cuba. In southern United States it sticks pretty closely to the coastal plains, though large trees grow 200 or 300 feet above tide level. In Texas it is inclined to rise higher on the mountains, but live oak in Texas seldom measures up to that which grows further east. In southern Texas, where the land is poor and dry, live oak degenerates into a shrub. Trees only a foot high sometimes bear acorns. In all its range in this country, it is known by but one English name, given it because it is evergreen. The leaves remain on the tree about thirteen months, following the habit of a number of other oaks. When new leaves appear, the old ones get out of the way.

The wood is very heavy, hard, strong, and tough. In strength and stiffness it rates higher than white oak, and it is twelve pounds a cubic foot heavier. The sapwood is light in color, the heartwood brown, sometimes quite dark. The pores in the sapwood are open, but many of them are closed in heartwood. The annual rings are moderately well defined. The large pores are in the springwood, and those of the summerwood are smaller, but numerous. The medullary rays are numerous and dark. Measured radially, they are shorter than those of many other oaks. They show well in quarter-sawed lumber, but are arranged peculiarly, and do not form large groups of figures; but the wood presents a rather flecked or wavy appearance. The general tone is dark brown and very rich. It takes a smooth polish. When the wood is worked into spindles and small articles, and brightly polished, its appearance suggests dark polished granite, but the similitude is not sustained under close examination. Grills composed of small spindles and scrollwork are strikingly beautiful if displayed in light which does the wood justice. Composite panels are manufactured by joining narrow strips edge to edge. Selected pieces of dressed live oak suggest Circassian walnut, but would not pass as an imitation on close inspection. It may be stated generally that live oak is far from being a dead, flat wood, but is capable of being worked for various effects. Its value as a cabinet material has not been appreciated in the past, nor have its possibilities been suspected. It dropped out of notice when shipbuilders dispensed with it, and people seem to have taken for granted that it had no value for anything else. The form of the trunks makes possible the cutting of short stock only; but there is abundance of it. It fringes a thousand miles of coast. Many a trunk, short though it is, will cut easily a thousand feet of lumber. Working the large roots in veneer has not been undertaken, but good judges of veneers, who know what the stumps and roots contain, have expressed the opinion that a field is there awaiting development.

Published reports of the uses of woods of various states seldom mention live oak. In Texas some of it is employed in the manufacture of parquet flooring. It is dark and contrasts with the blocks or strips of maple or some other light wood. It is turned in the lathe for newel posts for stairs, and contributes to other parts of stair work. In Louisiana it is occasionally found in shops where vehicles are made. It meets requirements as axles for heavy wagons. Stone masons’ mauls are made of live oak knots. They stand nearly as much pounding as lignum-vitÆ. More live oak is cut for fuel than for all other purposes. It develops much heat, but a large quantity of ashes remains.

The live oak is the most highly valued ornamental tree of the South, though it has seldom been planted. Nature placed these oaks where they are growing. Many an old southern homestead sits well back in groves of live oak. Parks and plazas in towns have them, and would not part with them on any terms. Tallahassee, Florida, is almost buried under live oaks which in earlier years sheltered the wigwams of an Indian town. Villages near the coasts of both the Gulf and the Atlantic in several southern states have their venerable trees large enough for half the people to find shade beneath the branches at one time. Many fine stands have been cut in recent years to make room for corn, cane, and rice.

Many persons associate the live oak with Spanish moss which festoons its branches in the Gulf region. The moss is no part of the tree, and apparently draws no substance from it, though it may smother the leaves by accumulation, or break the branches by its weight. Strictly speaking, the beard-like growth is not moss at all, but a sort of pine apple (Dendropogon usenoides) which simply hangs on the limbs and draws its sustenance from water and air. It is found on other trees, besides live oak, and dealers in Louisiana alone sell half a million dollars worth of it a year to upholsterers in all the principal countries of the world.