Data Sources

This is the core of the Oak Compendium. It is a collection of personal observations by the creator of this site, Jeff Clark, as well as summary information of basic facts about Oaks.

A globe spanning and comprehensive oak species database by oaksoftheworld.fr We have bootstrapped the data of Oak Compendium from this data and provide it in a searchable and organized manner. The data consists mostly of facts about oaks and we have tried to avoid bringing in any novel prose or non-fact based writing.

The Sibley Guide to Trees is an excellent guide to nearly all of the trees that occur in the Continental US and Canada (it leaves out the extreme South FL tree flora). It has good coverage of the oaks that are tree like. It mentions some of the "shrubby" oaks and leaves out or barely mentions some species, but for most of the oaks north of Mexico it is a wonderfully illustrated guide.

The Oak Compendium primarily uses the taxonomy of Quercus as presented on iNaturalist. There are some deviations, in particular with certain hybrids and some naming, but we have tried to match that taxonomy as closely as possible.