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Scrub oak   /skrəb oʊk/   Listen
noun
Oak  n.  
1.
(Bot.) Any tree or shrub of the genus Quercus. The oaks have alternate leaves, often variously lobed, and staminate flowers in catkins. The fruit is a smooth nut, called an acorn, which is more or less inclosed in a scaly involucre called the cup or cupule. There are now recognized about three hundred species, of which nearly fifty occur in the United States, the rest in Europe, Asia, and the other parts of North America, a very few barely reaching the northern parts of South America and Africa. Many of the oaks form forest trees of grand proportions and live many centuries. The wood is usually hard and tough, and provided with conspicuous medullary rays, forming the silver grain.
2.
The strong wood or timber of the oak. Note: Among the true oaks in America are: Barren oak, or Black-jack, Quercus nigra. Basket oak, Quercus Michauxii. Black oak, Quercus tinctoria; called also yellow oak or quercitron oak. Bur oak (see under Bur.), Quercus macrocarpa; called also over-cup or mossy-cup oak. Chestnut oak, Quercus Prinus and Quercus densiflora. Chinquapin oak (see under Chinquapin), Quercus prinoides. Coast live oak, Quercus agrifolia, of California; also called enceno. Live oak (see under Live), Quercus virens, the best of all for shipbuilding; also, Quercus Chrysolepis, of California. Pin oak. Same as Swamp oak. Post oak, Quercus obtusifolia. Red oak, Quercus rubra. Scarlet oak, Quercus coccinea. Scrub oak, Quercus ilicifolia, Quercus undulata, etc. Shingle oak, Quercus imbricaria. Spanish oak, Quercus falcata. Swamp Spanish oak, or Pin oak, Quercus palustris. Swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor. Water oak, Quercus aquatica. Water white oak, Quercus lyrata. Willow oak, Quercus Phellos. Among the true oaks in Europe are: Bitter oak, or Turkey oak, Quercus Cerris (see Cerris). Cork oak, Quercus Suber. English white oak, Quercus Robur. Evergreen oak, Holly oak, or Holm oak, Quercus Ilex. Kermes oak, Quercus coccifera. Nutgall oak, Quercus infectoria. Note: Among plants called oak, but not of the genus Quercus, are: African oak, a valuable timber tree (Oldfieldia Africana). Australian oak or She oak, any tree of the genus Casuarina (see Casuarina). Indian oak, the teak tree (see Teak). Jerusalem oak. See under Jerusalem. New Zealand oak, a sapindaceous tree (Alectryon excelsum). Poison oak, a shrub once not distinguished from poison ivy, but now restricted to Rhus toxicodendron or Rhus diversiloba. Silky oak or Silk-bark oak, an Australian tree (Grevillea robusta).
Green oak, oak wood colored green by the growth of the mycelium of certain fungi.
Oak apple, a large, smooth, round gall produced on the leaves of the American red oak by a gallfly (Cynips confluens). It is green and pulpy when young.
Oak beauty (Zool.), a British geometrid moth (Biston prodromaria) whose larva feeds on the oak.
Oak gall, a gall found on the oak. See 2d Gall.
Oak leather (Bot.), the mycelium of a fungus which forms leatherlike patches in the fissures of oak wood.
Oak pruner. (Zool.) See Pruner, the insect.
Oak spangle, a kind of gall produced on the oak by the insect Diplolepis lenticularis.
Oak wart, a wartlike gall on the twigs of an oak.
The Oaks, one of the three great annual English horse races (the Derby and St. Leger being the others). It was instituted in 1779 by the Earl of Derby, and so called from his estate.
To sport one's oak, to be "not at home to visitors," signified by closing the outer (oaken) door of one's rooms. (Cant, Eng. Univ.)


Scrub  n.  
1.
One who labors hard and lives meanly; a mean fellow. "A sorry scrub." "We should go there in as proper a manner as possible; nor altogether like the scrubs about us."
2.
Something small and mean.
3.
A worn-out brush.
4.
A thicket or jungle, often specified by the name of the prevailing plant; as, oak scrub, palmetto scrub, etc.
5.
(Stock Breeding) One of the common live stock of a region of no particular breed or not of pure breed, esp. when inferior in size, etc. (U.S.)
6.
Vegetation of inferior quality, though sometimes thick and impenetrable, growing in poor soil or in sand; also, brush; called also scrub brush. See Brush, above. (Australia & South Africa)
7.
(Forestry) A low, straggling tree of inferior quality.
Scrub bird (Zool.), an Australian passerine bird of the family Atrichornithidae, as Atrichia clamosa; called also brush bird.
Scrub oak (Bot.), the popular name of several dwarfish species of oak. The scrub oak of New England and the Middle States is Quercus ilicifolia, a scraggy shrub; that of the Southern States is a small tree (Quercus Catesbaei); that of the Rocky Mountain region is Quercus undulata, var. Gambelii.
Scrub robin (Zool.), an Australian singing bird of the genus Drymodes.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Scrub oak" Quotes from Famous Books



... shore of San Francisco Bay a line of bluffs terminates in a promontory, at whose base, formed by the crumbling debris of the cliff above, there is a narrow stretch of beach, salt meadow, and scrub oak. The abrupt wall of rock behind it seems to isolate it as completely from the mainland as the sea before it separates it from the opposite shore. In spite of its contiguity to San Francisco,—opposite also, ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the sheer rise we looked back for the last time over the wonderful panorama of the Rift Valley. Before us were wide rounded hills covered with a scattered small growth that in general appearance resembled scrub oak. It sloped away gently until it was lost in mists. Later, when these cleared, we saw distant blue mountains across a tremendous shallow basin. We were nearly on a level with the summit of Suswa itself, nor did we again drop much below that altitude. After five or six miles we overtook ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... were restive. Nagger snorted a welcome. Evidently they had passed an uneasy night. Slone found lion tracks at the spring and in sandy places. Presently he was on his way up to the notch between the great wall and the plateau. A growth of thick scrub oak made travel difficult. It had not appeared far up to that saddle, but it was far. There were straggling pine trees and huge rocks that obstructed his gaze. But once up he saw that the saddle was only a narrow ridge, curved to slope ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... entrance to Freckles' room, Black Jack stepped into the swale, and binding a wire tightly around a scrub oak, carried it below the waving grasses, stretched it taut across the trail, and fastened it to a tree in the swamp. Then he obliterated all signs of his work, and arranged the grass over the wire until it was so completely covered that only minute ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... by. The fall of the Confederacy left the slaves free and completed the ruin of the Dudley estate. Part of the land went, at ruinous prices, to meet mortgages at ruinous rates; part lay fallow, given up to scrub oak and short-leaf pine; merely enough was cultivated, or let out on shares to Negro tenants, to provide a living for old Malcolm and a few servants. Absorbed in dreams of the hidden gold and in the search for it, he neglected his business ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt


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