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| Gnarly old white oak in Davie County. |
Generally speaking, northern and Appalachian hardwoods are superior in quality to southern hardwoods due to several factors:
1) A shorter growing season for Appalachian and northern trees means tighter growth rings and more uniform appearance.
2) The frequency of tornadoes, hurricanes, and big thunderstorms in the South causes "shake" to occur quite frequently. Shake is when the wood fibers in a living tree split along the grain due to wind stress. Milled into flooring, shake appears as a small flaky bit of wood that is partially detached from the main board.
3) Southern oak is ornery like a mule! Oak species are different in the Piedmont and lowland South than in the Appalachians. They tend to be tougher, more reactive to moisture changes, coarse, and wide-grained.
In this post, however, I'd like to mention a few things to appreciate about southern oak. Much of the oak flooring in the 50's and 60's came out of the Ozark Mountains, and we encounter it often during refinishes. It typically has a lot more color variation than that straight, uniform Appalachian oak you see in furniture. There are many applications where I certainly wouldn't use it, but as long as the mill is rigorous about culling defects like shake, it's perfectly suitable for use in flooring if you like the appearance.
As you can see in this picture, it's full of variegations, and strong color contrasts. The warm climate and native soils influence those white-to-olive streaks. The fibers are coarse like hickory, but southern white oak has that "swampy" rustic look that you also see in character heart pine.
So while it may not have the tightest grain, or that perfect, uniform appearance that you want in today's high end homes, I think southern white oak deserves a little love now and then.
