Quercus Suber L. (FAGACEAE) — Cork Oak

This chapter provides information on uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of cork oak. Bark provides the cork of commerce, used for bungs and stoppers for bottles and other containers, life preservers, mats, ring buoys, floats, shoe inner-sole liners, artificial limbs, switch-boxes, gaskets of various types for automobiles, electric motors, polishing wheels, cork-board, and for insulation, acoustical, and machinery isolation purposes. It is also used in the manufacture of linoleum. Acorns of all oaks can be converted into "edible nuts", but in the bitter species much work is involved, compared to the "sweet oaks" like Quercus prinos . Exposure to the bark is reported to produce a respiratory disorder, suberosis, which starts with rhinitis, cough, and dyspnea, and then proceeds to chronic bronchitic changes or extrinsic allergic alveolitis. Native and forming extensive forests from northwestern Yugoslavia, west to Spain and Portugal, the islands of the Western Mediterranean and North Africa.