FireApproved

United States / Grow / pin oak

pin oak (Quercus palustris)
Photo: (c) Andre Hosper, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

pin oak

Quercus palustris · Fagaceae · all Quercus records · Wikipedia

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Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Pin oak begins with the eastern australia street-tree trial, one selected laboratory lineage for Quercus palustris. The cape town fire study supplies the other. Their named conditions are irrigated and green under performance conditions.

The record holds 3 hardiness assertions in hardiness evidence, while the evidence table preserves the accepted basis for both laboratory references. This division keeps the two studies distinguishable from the temperature assertions and from each other. It also leaves both test states attached to the pin oak source pack rather than blending them into a single unnamed condition.

Form
tree
Mature height
~100 ft
Water need
high
Rated in
British Columbia; Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa; Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia +7
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
2 conditions stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Placement evidence
5 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
British Columbia; Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa; Central Coast, New South Wales, Australia; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; OR/WA/ID; Ohio / Midwest; Oregon; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US; eastern WA
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Landscaping Plants (Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia editions) · Official scoped edition
    • MD; partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-08

      Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.

    • NJ; partial normalized coverage

      New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.

    • WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26

      West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.

  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · Official scoped edition
    • ID, OR, WA; partial normalized coverage · 2023-10-01

      The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.

  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Eastern Washington · Official scoped edition
    • Eastern Washington (WA footprint); partial normalized coverage

      Washington DNR publishes the guide for Eastern Washington and says it compiles plants from other Firewise documents that are likely to thrive there. FireApproved publishes 46 exact owners only as eastern Washington context. The rows are corroborative, not empirical or statewide.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AR, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, TN, VA, WA, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MO, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
USDA hardiness
2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

26

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

26 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • District of Columbia (DC)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (9)

Corroboration (3 rows from 3 sources)

Mid-scale / conditional (2)

Same genus in the directory · the Quercus group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Quercus palustris (Pin oak). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/quercus-palustris/. Last verified 2026-08-23.