Alabamatreehugger, yes, these trees are prolific seed droppers. Maybe those who said they wanted seed/acorns, should think of that before I send them. Hair yes, as Dax said it is my tree. It is about 7-8 years old and has put out seed for the past 3 (or longer) years. They grow very fast where rainfall is good, but can grow in dry areas in the eastern US. But out west may be too dry. I was told this when I recommended it to western US person. They can grow on steep inclines in forest here in the eastern US, but are slow growers there. I have 2 of them, one is getting wide and the other is skinnier, not upright, but just skinnier. One has a larger mulch circle, maybe that is making it grow wider? As far as deer and other wildlife eating the acorns also, they must not know about the acorns, or they may be afraid of my mom's cats, sounds strange, but maybe they are. Something beheaded the Burr oak from Dax's acorn, it had to be semi-tall. Maybe it was a groundhog, they can stand on their hind legs and lean til plants tilt to the ground.

"The mother tree, from which the acorns came, has experienced temps around 0 degrees F in Denmark" Yeah but an average winter in most of Denmark is zn 8, so in theory it will be a little easier to establish there. I had one die in the winters of the 1990s, but not one of the colder winters like 1994. Maybe 1996? In any case it clearly wasn't particularly hardy...for example...a small Pinea pinea survived the same winter. I think it died at 0F. Quercus suber was hardier too. Heat & humidity is generally not nearly as much a problem for the large flora of the Mediterranean as it is for those of California. There is/was Quercus ilex, suber, and Pinea pinea at the NCSU arb...and at Williamsburg...and various other Med. species I could mention, while Californian trees other than S. semprevirens and a couple others are very rare there. Certainly no California BLEs come to mind as doing well in the SE but I could be forgetting a couple. Compare Arbutus x andrachnoides which is sold by Woodlanders in SC and has been an absolute trouper for me int he past 3 summers, with Arbutus menziesii which is utterly ungrowable anywhere on the east coast. So you could certainly try it but expect it to die in a cold winter, not a summer. BTW though it is interesting to grow as a novelty, if you actually are planning a landscape around it you should be aware they are one of the most sombre looking trees I know of, and they cast dense shade. Search this forum for the picture of the one I posted previously for poaky (sp?).

We bought one of these from the local health food store (!) about five years ago. We are both foresters, so we knew how to plant it and how care for it. This tree is absolutely amazing. It grows two feet or so per season (and we are in far northern WI, so the season is short). The habit seems to be upright growth with both straight and crooked laterals. I keep pruning it to keep the branches above our heads. It is growing in a less than optimum place--near a cedar hedge, sidwalk and driveway-and it still grows superbly. the soil is a well-drained fertile very sandy loam, which obviously agrees with the tree. The squirrels go nuts over the acorns--I never get even one to use in decorations. They harvest them all, when they are still green, in a mad frenzy of grabbing acorns and shredding leaves. The acorns that the squirrels forget readily sprout in the grass. All in all, a great tree to have around.

I planted my biggest SCO about a decade ago, and it's now about 25' tall. Back in the spring I was walking underneath it, and I looked down and saw three seedlings, so apparently it produced at least a few acorns at only ten years old. I potted those seedlings up, so I'll be planting those in another few weeks.