Live oak or evergreen oak is a general term for a number of unrelated oaks in several different sections of the genus Quercus that happen to share the characteristic of evergreen foliage.
The name live oak comes from the fact that evergreen oaks remain green and "live" throughout winter, when other oaks are dormant, leafless and "dead"-looking. The name is used mainly in North America, where evergreen oaks are widespread in warmer areas, along the Atlantic coast from southeast Virginia and North Carolina to Florida, west along the Gulf Coast to Texas and Louisiana and across the southwest to California and southwest Oregon.
Evergreen oak species are also common in parts of Europe and Asia, and are included in this list for the sake of completeness. These species, although not having "live" in their common names in their countries of origin, are colloquially called live oaks when cultivated in North America.
When the term live oak is used in a specific rather than general sense, it most commonly refers to the southern live oak (Quercus virginiana), the first species so named, and an icon of the Old South, but can often refer to other species regionally.
The southern live oak is the official state tree of Georgia.
In Texas, a small grove of live oaks (Texas live oak or southern live oak) is known as a mott.
Read more about Live Oak: Wood and Lumber, List of Evergreen Species in Genus Quercus
Famous quotes containing the words live and/or oak:
“I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“Where he swings in the wind and rain,
In the sun and in the snow,
Without pleasure, without pain,
On the dead oak tree bough.”
—Edward Thomas (1878–1917)