Quercus chapmanii

This oak is named for a doctor who loved plants more than medicine. Alvan Wentworth Chapman practiced in Apalachicola, on the Florida panhandle, and botanized the Gulf coast so thoroughly that his Flora of the Southern United States, published in 1860, stood for decades as the book on the region's plants; this scrub oak carries his name in thanks.

Quercus chapmanii is an oak of the deep coastal sands, the scrub and sandhills from South Carolina around to the Gulf, and the tree keeps to the white oak side of the family, with rounded, untoothed leaves rather than the bristled points of the red oaks. The leaves are glossy and obovate, oddly large and handsome for so dry a setting, and they hang on late, dropping only as the new ones push in spring, so Chapman oak reads as nearly evergreen through a mild winter.

Chapman oak stays modest, a large shrub or small tree, tough past the point of complaint about heat, drought, and salt. In the wild the tree is a fixture of Florida scrub, where the acorns feed jays, deer, and small mammals, and the low, twiggy thickets shelter the birds and gopher tortoises of that vanishing habitat.

Plant Chapman oak in sand and sun where you want glossy, near-evergreen structure and an honest piece of Gulf-coast botanical history in the bargain: a dry native or coastal planting, a sandy screen, or a low, characterful specimen on ground that defeats thirstier trees. Give sharp drainage and full sun, pair with other sandhill and scrub natives, and expect a slow, salt- and drought-proof shrub-oak that asks almost nothing once settled.