Quercus coccinea |
Quercus turbinella |
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scarlet oak |
grey oak, shrub live oak, Sonoran scrub oak, turbinella oak |
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Habit | Trees, deciduous, to 30 m; lower trunk without stubs of dead branches. | Shrubs or small trees, evergreen or subevergreen, to 4 m. Bark light gray or brown, scaly. |
Bark | dark gray to dark brown, irregularly fissured with scaly ridges, inner bark orangish pink. |
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Twigs | reddish brown, (1-)2-3.5 mm diam., glabrous. |
brown to gray, 1-3 mm diam., usually tomentulose, sometimes glabrous, becoming glabrate. |
Buds | brown, round to ovoid, 1-2 mm, minutely pubescent. |
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Leaves | blade elliptic to ovate or obovate, 70-160 × 80-130 mm, base obtuse to truncate, margins with 5-9 deep lobes and 18-50 awns, lobes distally expanded, sinuses usually extending more than 1/2 distance to midrib, apex acute; surfaces abaxially glabrous except for minute axillary tufts of tomentum, adaxially glossy light green, glabrous, secondary veins raised on both surfaces. |
blade elliptic or ovate, (1.5-)20-30 × (5-)10-15(-20) mm, thick, leathery, base cordate or rounded, margins planar or slightly crisped-undulate, coarsely 3-5-toothed or very shallowly lobed on each side, teeth spinose with spines 1-1.5 mm, secondary veins 4-8 on each side, apex acute or obtuse; surfaces abaxially yellow or reddish, usually glaucous, minutely stellate-puberulent, adaxially grayish, glaucous, or yellowish glandular, glabrous or sparsely and minutely stellate-pubescent. |
Acorns | biennial; cup turbinate to hemispheric, 7-13 mm high × 16.5-31.5 mm wide, covering 1/3-1/2 nut, outer surface light to dark reddish brown, glossy, glabrous to puberulent, inner surface light brown, glabrous, occasionally with ring of pubescence around scar, scales often tuberculate, base broad, glossy, margins strongly concave with tips tightly appressed, acute to attenuate; nut oblong to subglobose, 12-22 × 10-21 mm, glabrous, with 1 or more rings of fine pits at apex, scar diam. 6.5-13.5 mm. |
solitary or several, on axillary peduncle 10-40 mm; cup hemispheric or shallowly cup-shaped, 4-6 mm deep × 8-12 mm wide, covering 1/4-1/2 nut, scales tightly appressed, ovate, moderately tuberculate, grayish or yellowish puberulent; nut light brown, ovoid, to 20 × 11 mm, minutely puberulent or glabrate. |
Cotyledons | distinct. |
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Terminal | buds dark reddish brown, conic to ovoid, 4-7 mm, noticeably 5-angled in cross section, usually silvery- or tawny-pubescent distal to middle. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Quercus coccinea |
Quercus turbinella |
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Phenology | Flowering spring. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Poor soils, well-drained uplands, dry slopes, and ridges, occasionally on poorly drained sites | Dry desert slopes, often in juniper and pinyon woodlands |
Elevation | 0-1500 m (0-4900 ft) | 800-2000 m (2600-6600 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; AR; CT; DC; DE; GA; IL; IN; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MO; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; PA; RI; SC; TN; VA; VT; WI; WV
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AZ; CA; CO; NM; NV; TX; UT; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora, and probably n Chihuahua)
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Discussion | Trees having acorns with broad, distinctly warty cups are sometimes classified as Quercus coccinea var. tuberculata Sargent. Quercus coccinea reportedly hybridizes with Q. imbricaria, Q. ilicifolia (= Q. ×robbinsii Trelease), Q. laevis, and Q. palustris (E. J. Palmer 1948) and with Q. phellos, Q. rubra, and Q. velutina (= Q. ×fontana Laughlin). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Formerly, California populations of what here is referred to as Quercus john-tuckeri have been included in the concept of Q. turbinella. Quercus john-tuckeri has subsessile fruit and noncordate leaf bases as opposed to the consistently pedunculate fruit and strongly cordate leaf bases of Q. turbinella. The two species seem to be no more closely related to each other than each might be to other southwestern oaks, and Q. john-tuckeri shares at least as many characteristics with Q. berberidifolia as with Q. turbinella. Thus, treatment of these two taxa as varieties of the same species is inappropriate. Quercus turbinella forms putative hybrid swarms with Q. gambelii (see treatment), as well as with Q. grisea. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 3. | FNA vol. 3. |
Parent taxa | Fagaceae > Quercus > sect. Lobatae | Fagaceae > Quercus > sect. Quercus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Q. coccinea var. tuberculata | Q. dumosa var. turbinella, Q. subturbinella |
Name authority | Münchhausen: Hausvater 5(1): 254. (1770) | Greene: Ill. W. Amer. Oaks 1: 37. (1889) |
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