Quercus macrocarpaMichx.

bur oak

WFO wfo-0000291873 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. a Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205573156
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. b Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205499057
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. c Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205659724
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. d Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200070897
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. e Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205648699
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Henry "Nick" Robertson
fig. f Henry "Nick" Robertson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 198993849
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. g Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205337870
Quercus macrocarpa, photographed by Étienne Léveillé-Bourret
fig. h Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205669060

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 122 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 122 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 17 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.

  • Cerris macrocarpa Raf.
  • Cerris oliviformis (F.Michx.) Raf.
  • Quercus macrocarpa f. appressa Trel.
  • Quercus macrocarpa f. depressa (Nutt.) Trel.
  • Quercus macrocarpa f. olivaeformis (F.Michx.) A.Gray
  • Quercus macrocarpa f. oliviformis (F.Michx.) Trel.
  • Quercus macrocarpa f. orbiculata Trel.
  • Quercus macrocarpa subsp. eumacrocarpa A.Camus
  • Quercus macrocarpa subsp. oliviformis (F.Michx.) A.Camus
  • Quercus macrocarpa var. abbeviata A.DC.
  • Quercus macrocarpa var. alata N.Coleman
  • Quercus macrocarpa var. minor A.DC.
  • Quercus macrocarpa var. oliviformis (F.Michx.) A.Gray
  • Quercus mandanensis Rydb.
  • Quercus obtusiloba var. depressa Nutt.
  • Quercus oliviformis F.Michx.
  • Quercus stellata var. depressa (Nutt.) A.DC.

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.