Field Guide

Blackjack oak is common in dry upland woods, especially ones that have been badly burned. It can grow on the poorest soils. It is rugged but not worth much as lumber. It's one of the first trees to be used as fuel.

Black hickory's nut, like that of the pignut hickory, is awfully hard to crack. Because rural Ozarkers noticed their hogs had no trouble extracting the sweet kernels, both species came to be called "pignut hickories."

Missouri is rich with hickory trees. Mockernut hickory stands out from the rest for its hard wood, thick-shelled fruit enclosing relatively small kernels, large and light-colored terminal buds, and tight, never shaggy, bark.

Eastern hop hornbeam is named for its fruits, which are clusters of flattened, papery, scalelike sacs arranged in an overlapping pattern, like scales on a pinecone — resembling the hops that beer is made from.

The dwarf chestnut oak, though only 3–10 feet tall and the shortest of Missouri's oaks, can nevertheless produce abundant acorns that are relished by several types of birds and mammals.

Chinkapin oak is fairly easy to identify because of its distinctively toothed leaves. Look for it growing in rocky soils derived from limestone or dolomite on bluffs and in upland woods, and in floodplain forests and lower slopes along streams.

A very small shrub of our native prairies and other open sites, New Jersey tea was used by patriotic American colonists as a substitute for black tea imported from England during the Revolutionary War.