It is a statuesque natural sculpture that shadows the South, known for hardiness and hardness, offering great benefits to nature and the human eye. It is an evergreen that loses its leaves, whose dead membranes carry on through centuries of age, once found throughout the seven seas, and literally brought colonial shipbuilding to its knees. The Live Oak is known scientifically as Quercus (kwerkus) Virginiana, as it was in 1610 that Virginians first identified this American giant as a separate species. Growing easily in acidic or alkaline soil, and tolerating both moist and sandy soil, the Live Oak is at home along the Southern U.S. coast. Being very impervious to rot and insects, the Live Oak can live centuries, adding mass to its trunk as inner xylem layers that transport water and minerals continuously die and are replaced. Its spreading canopy has an enormous tensile strength that can extend well over 100 feet, with heights reaching up to 75 feet, and the Angel Oak on Johns Island, which is named for the Angel family by the way, provides more than 17,000 square feet of shade.
