Quercus hemisphaericaW.Bartram ex Willd.

Darlington OakDarlington oak

WFO wfo-0000291084 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Jay Pruett
fig. a Jay Pruett, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-09 / obs. 187419447
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Darren Oh
fig. b Darren Oh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 177604849
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. c Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 84576532
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Daniel Estabrooks
fig. d Daniel Estabrooks, CC0 1.0 / obs. 65029648
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Austin Pursley
fig. e Austin Pursley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 64893029
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Daniel Estabrooks
fig. f Daniel Estabrooks, CC0 1.0 / obs. 63839416
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Austin Pursley
fig. g Austin Pursley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 63584458
Quercus hemisphaerica, photographed by Laura Clark
fig. h Laura Clark, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56034318

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 10 botanical countries

Regions where Quercus hemisphaerica is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMississippiNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTexasVirginia
Native distribution of Quercus hemisphaerica, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Mississippi MSI
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 875 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.2 °C 8.5 °C 14.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.5 °C 31.7 °C 32.8 °C
Annual rainfall 1,257 mm 1,356 mm 1,676 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 167 mm 212 mm 340 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 875 research-grade observations of Quercus hemisphaerica that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 11 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Dryopsila maritima Raf.
  • Quercus geminata f. maritima (Michx.) Trel.
  • Quercus hemispherica var. maritima (Michx.) C.H.Mull.
  • Quercus laurifolia subsp. maritima A.E.Murray
  • Quercus laurifolia var. maritima (Michx.) A.E.Murray
  • Quercus maritima Raf.
  • Quercus maritima (Michx.) Willd.
  • Quercus nigra f. hemisphaerica (Bartram ex Willd.) Trel.
  • Quercus phellos var. maritima Michx.
  • Quercus virens var. maritima (Michx.) Chapm.
  • Quercus virginiana var. maritima (Michx.) Sarg.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.