Quercus fusiformis |
Quercus grisea |
|
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escarpment live oak, live oak, plateau oak, Texas live oak |
gray oak |
|
Habit | Trees, sometimes shrubs, subevergreen, trees to 25 m, shrubs often forming large clonal stands. | |
Bark | dark brown or black, scaly. |
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Twigs | light gray, 1.5-3 mm diam., tomentulose, tomentulum often persistent in age. |
gray, 1-2 mm diam., sparsely or densely stellate-tomentulose or tomentose when young. |
Buds | reddish or dark brown, subglobose or ovate, 1.5-3 mm; scale margins glabrous or puberulent. |
dark red-brown, ovoid to subglobose, 1-2 mm, stellate hairs causing yellowish color, at least on outer scales; stipules persistent, 1-4, subulate, pubescent, at base of terminal buds. |
Leaves | blade oblong-elliptic to narrowly ovate or lanceolate, sometimes obovate, ± planar, (10-)35-90(-150) × (15-)20-40(-85) mm, base rounded to truncate or cordate, rarely cuneate, margins minutely revolute or flat, entire or irregularly 1-3 toothed on each side, teeth mucronate (rarely spinose in suckers or juveniles), secondary veins obscure, 8-10 on each side, apex obtuse-rounded or acute; surfaces abaxially whitish or glaucous, densely covered with minute, appressed, fused-stellate hairs, light green and glabrate in shade leaves, adaxially dark or light green, glossy, glabrous or with minute, scattered, stellate hairs. |
blade oblong to elliptic or ovate, (15-)25-35(-80) × (7-)15-30(-40) mm, thick and leathery, base cordate or rounded, margins minutely revolute, entire or dentate with mucronate teeth, secondary veins 6-10 on each side, branched, apex acute, sometimes obtuse, rarely rounded; surfaces abaxially dull gray-green or yellowish, minutely stellate-pubescent with interlocking hairs, secondary veins very prominent, adaxially dull green, very sparsely and minutely stellate-pubescent, secondary veins slightly raised. |
Acorns | 1-3, on peduncle 3-30 mm; cup funnel-shaped, hemispheric, or deeply goblet-shaped, 8-15 mm deep × 6-12(-15) mm wide, base often constricted, scales whitish or grayish, thickened basally, keeled, acute-attenuate, tomentulose, tips reddish, glabrous or puberulent; nut dark brown, often with light brown longitudinal stripes, subfusiform and acute to narrowly barrel-shaped, rarely distally rounded, (17-)20-30(-33) × 8-15 mm, glabrous. |
solitary or paired, subsessile or on peduncle 0-30 mm; cup from deeply goblet- to deeply cup-shaped, 4-10 mm deep × 8-15 mm wide, enclosing to 1/2 nut, scales broadly ovate to oblong, proximal scales slightly or markedly tuberculate and whitish canescent, tips closely appressed, red-brown, thin, glabrate; nut light brown, ovoid to narrowly ovoid or ellipsoid, 12-18 × 8-12 mm. |
Cotyledons | connate. |
connate. |
Large | shrubs or moderate trees, deciduous or subevergreen, to 10 m. Bark gray, fissured. |
|
Quercus fusiformis |
Quercus grisea |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Hills, grasslands, scrublands, open woodlands, oak-juniper woodland, and margins of thorn scrub, often on limestone or deep calcareous loams, sometimes on granular sand or gravel | Igneous or dolomitic slopes, oak woodlands, juniper woodlands, desert chaparral |
Elevation | 0-1200 m (0-3900 ft) | usually above 1500 m (usually above 4900 ft) |
Distribution |
OK; TX; Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas)
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AZ; NM; TX; Mexico (Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango)
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Discussion | The difficulty in distinguishing Texas populations of Quercus fusiformis from Q. virginiana is reflected in a variety of taxonomic treatments, including reducing Q. fusiformis to varietal rank under Q. virginiana. The latter disposition is problematic, however, because Q. fusiformis in northeastern Mexico is amply distinct from Q. virginiana and appears to be more closely related to Q. brandegei Goldmann, an endemic of Baja California, Mexico. Thus, here we assume that the intergradation of Q. virginiana and Q. fusiformis is a result of secondary contact, and is not primary clinal variation. Under this interpretation, Q. virginiana in typical form extends into Texas only as far west as the Brazos River drainage along the coast from there to the escarpment of the Edwards Plateau; most populations elsewhere are either intermediate between the two species or show greater affinity with Q. fusiformis. On the Edwards Plateau, the live oak populations are small trees forming rhizomatous copses (shinneries) and having mostly acute acorns. Populations of live oak on deep sands in south Texas differ from typical Quercus fusiformis in having broader, more rounded leaves, often with the secondary veins somewhat impressed abaxially, and relatively blunt, barrel-shaped acorns. These characteristics suggest introgresion from the Mexican-Central American species Q. oleoides Schlechtendal & Chamisso, which in its typical form reaches north only as far as southern Tamaulipas, Mexico. The name Q. oleoides var. quaterna C. H. Muller has been applied to what is apparently a shrub form of one of these Q. fusiformis × Q. oleoides hybrids. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Some of the specimens referred to Quercus endemica by C. H. Muller should be placed in Q. grisea. Numerous hybrids between Quercus grisea and other white oaks, including Q. gambelii, Q. mohriana, Q. arizonica, and numerous species in northern Mexico, have been reported. In the Hueco and Quitman mountains of trans-Pecos Texas, putative hybrids of Q. grisea × Q. turbinella Greene occur. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 3. | FNA vol. 3. |
Parent taxa | Fagaceae > Quercus > sect. Quercus | Fagaceae > Quercus > sect. Quercus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Q. virginiana var. fusiformis | Q. undulata var. grisea |
Name authority | Small: Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 28: 357. (1901) | Liebmann: Overs. Kongel. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Forh. Medlemmers Arbeider 1854: 171. (1854) |
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