Habitat: grows best in well-drained soils, often in pure stands, but also present in upload oak stands.
Wood Uses: Flooring, furniture, interior trim, high-quality plywood for cabinets, barrels, shipbuilding, fuel, splits for baskets, mine timbers, crossties, veneer.
Wildlife Uses: Acorns: songbirds, wood ducks, eastern chipmunk, meadow mouse, wood rat.
Acorns & Buds: ruffed grouse, bobwhite quail, wild turkey, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, red-cockaded woodpecker, red headed woodpecker.
Acorns, bark, & wood: black bear, raccoon, gray squirrel, fox squirrel, southern flying squirrel.
Acorns, twigs, & foliage: white-tailed deer.
Historical Uses: Bark chewed for mouth sores; bark tea taken for indigestion; as tonic, rubbed on chapped skin. Acorns made into flour after leaching out tannin. Tannin used to cure hides; lumber used for cabin logs.
