Quercus nigraL.

water oak

WFO wfo-0000292146 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Quercus nigra, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. a Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-22 / obs. 200101653
Quercus nigra, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. b Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201897909
Quercus nigra, photographed by Brian White
fig. c Brian White, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198224660
Quercus nigra, photographed by Rich Sommer
fig. d Rich Sommer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195181742
Quercus nigra, photographed by Nonbinary-Naturalist
fig. e Nonbinary-Naturalist, CC0 1.0 / obs. 192621877
Quercus nigra, photographed by Morgan Freese
fig. f Morgan Freese, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194116634
Quercus nigra, photographed by Rich Sommer
fig. g Rich Sommer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194873629
Quercus nigra, photographed by Morgan Freese
fig. h Morgan Freese, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192646924

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.

Flowering n = 54 observations

Peak flowering in Mar, from 54 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 40 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.

  • Quercus agnostifolia hort. ex K.Koch
  • Quercus aquatica (Lam.) Walter
  • Quercus aquatica var. attenuata Aiton
  • Quercus aquatica var. cuneata Aiton
  • Quercus aquatica var. dentata A.DC.
  • Quercus aquatica var. elongata Aiton
  • Quercus aquatica var. hybrida Chapm.
  • Quercus aquatica var. indivisa Aiton
  • Quercus aquatica var. nana (Willd.) Nutt.
  • Quercus aquatica var. stipitata A.DC.
  • Quercus bumelifolia Riddell
  • Quercus dentata W.Bartram
  • Quercus genabii hort. ex K.Koch
  • Quercus hemisphaerica var. nana (Willd.) Sarg.
  • Quercus ludoviciana var. microcarpa (Dippel) Rehder
  • Quercus marylandica Du Roi
  • Quercus microcarya Small
  • Quercus nana Willd.
  • Quercus nigra f. microcarya (Small) Sarg.
  • Quercus nigra f. microcarya (Small) Trel.
  • Quercus nigra f. nigra
  • Quercus nigra f. plenocarpa Trel.
  • Quercus nigra f. saxicola Trel.
  • Quercus nigra f. tridentifera (Sarg.) Trel.

and 16 more.

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.

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