Bear oak (Quercus ilicifolia Wang.) is widely recognized as difficult to eradicate. Burning, cutting, and routing, while killing the original stems to the ground, have caused dormant buds on the root collar to become active and produce fast growing sprouts which soon replace the original plant. In fact, single-stemmed plants so treated can produce as many as 40 or more new stems. Moreover, this species has been difficult to control chemically owing to resurging growth from the root collar and lower stem after a kill of original stems. Bear oak is widely distributed as an understory tree in the eastern United States extending from Maine to North Carolina and from the Atlantic Coast to Ohio and Kentucky. Often it develops into dense thickets on burned-over forest land or abandoned fields so that it monopolizes the site, crowding out other more desirable species and making planting of other trees an expensive operation. One hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand acres of such “scrub oak barrens” occur in Pennsylvania.