The 20 Native Oaks of the National Capital Region's Parks

Blackjack oak (Quercus marilandica). NPS / Justin Hobart.

A region rich in oaks

Of the 50 oak species native to eastern North America, 20 grow in the parks of the Park Service's National Capital Region. The most abundant is the white oak (Quercus alba).

The region's variety comes from its setting: its parks span four physiographic provinces of the Mid-Atlantic — the Valley and Ridge, the Blue Ridge, the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain.

The five common oaks

These range widely across the eastern United States, from the Canadian border to the Gulf Coast, and grow in every one of the parks surveyed:

• white oak (Q. alba);
• chestnut oak (Q. prinus);
• black oak (Q. velutina);
• red oak (Q. rubra);
• scarlet oak (Q. coccinea).

Southern oaks

Eight less common species have their main range in the Southeast:

Western oaks

Six uncommon species are more typical west of the Appalachians:

A northern oak — and maybe one more

• Bear oak (Q. ilicifolia), with northern affinities, grows in the mountains of the region's northwest — at Catoctin Mountain Park and the C&O Canal.
• Pagoda oak, a southeastern species, grows along the Potomac River just south of Piscataway Park, near the region's southern edge, and could become the twenty-first. It is the only oak native to the Potomac watershed not yet found in the region's parks.

Keeping watch

The region's Inventory & Monitoring Network tracks oaks as part of its forest vegetation monitoring — see its vegetation monitoring page for reports — and is working with Virginia Tech on the health of the region's oak populations.

Parks surveyed: Antietam National Battlefield, Catoctin Mountain Park, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, Manassas National Battlefield Park, Monocacy National Battlefield, National Capital Parks–East, Prince William Forest Park, Rock Creek Park, and Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.

Sources

Based on "Oaks of the National Capital Region," by John Parrish, botanist with the National Capital Region Inventory & Monitoring Network, National Park Service — first published in 2010 and republished online in 2024, drawing on network data, field observations and the Field Guide to Native Oak Species of Eastern North America (2003); a work of the United States government in the public domain. A white oak photograph under a CC BY license, without its creator named, is not reproduced.