Bear Oak

Quercus ilicifolia

Bear oak is the scrub oak of dry sandy barrens. a shrubby, thicket-forming oak that grows where nothing more refined will survive. At four to ten feet, it's one of the few oaks that fits in a residential landscape without eventually shading out everything else, and it produces acorns reliably on lean, dry soil that would stress a canopy-sized oak into decline. The deeply lobed leaves turn dark red in fall. Dense branching creates dense wildlife cover. Acorns are small but produced heavily and taken by birds and small mammals. If you have a dry, sandy, problematic corner that needs something native, structural, and wildlife-productive, bear oak fits that brief precisely.