Quercus pacifica |
Quercus lyrata |
|
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Channel Island scrub oak, island scrub oak, Pacific oak |
overcup oak |
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Habit | Shrubs, rarely small trees, subevergreen, shrubs to 2 m, trees to 5 m or taller. | Trees, deciduous, to 20 m. Bark light gray, tinged with red, with thick plates underlying scales. |
Bark | scaly on older branches and trunk. |
|
Twigs | brownish or reddish, minutely puberulent, becoming glabrate and gray with age. |
grayish or reddish, (2-)3(-4) mm diam., villous, soon glabrate. |
Buds | light or chestnut brown, ovate or globose, 2-3 × 1-2 mm. |
3 mm, gray-puberulent. |
Leaves | blade obovate or oblong, planar to moderately convex or undulate, 15-40 × 7-20(-40) mm, base cuneate or rounded, attenuate-decurrent along petiole, margins minutely cartilaginous, entire or with 1-5 irregular teeth on each side, secondary veins obscure, 1-5 on each side, apex blunt or rounded, occasionally subacute with mucronate tip; surfaces abaxially waxy, glandular, with scattered minute, flat, appressed, ± 8-rayed stellate hairs, not obscuring surface, adaxially green, glossy, glabrate or with minute, scattered, stellate hairs. |
blade obovate or broadly obovate, 100-160(-200) × 50-100(-120) mm, base narrowly cuneate to acute, margins moderately to deeply lobed, lobes somewhat to sharply angular or spatulate, often with 2-3 teeth, sinuses nearly to midrib, secondary veins arched, divergent, (3-)5-7 on each side, apex broadly rounded or ovate; surfaces abaxially light green or somewhat glaucous, tomentose, tomentum persisting or soon falling, adaxially dark green or dull gray, sparsely puberulent to glabrate. |
Acorns | paired or solitary in leaf axil, subsessile, rarely pedunculate in teratological forms; cup hemispheric to turbinate, to 15 mm deep × 20 mm wide, enclosing only 1/4-1/2 nut, scales moderately to heavily tuberculate, irregularly formed; nut light brown, acute-cylindric or fusiform, tapered, (15-)20-30 × (6-)9-15 m, apex acute, glabrate. |
1-2 on axillary peduncles to 40 mm; cup goblet-shaped, burlike, or spheroid, 15-20 mm deep × 20-30 mm wide, usually completely enclosing nut or merely apex visible, rarely enclosing only 1/2 nut, orifice smaller than nut diameter, often splitting irregularly at maturity, scales closely appressed, especially about margin, laterally connate, broadly triangular, keeled-tuberculate, finely grayish tomentose; nut light brown or grayish, ovoid-ellipsoid or oblong, (15-)25-50 × (10-)20-40 mm, finely puberulent or floccose. |
Cotyledons | distinct. |
distinct. |
Quercus pacifica |
Quercus lyrata |
|
Phenology | Flowering spring. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Chaparral, oak woodlands, margins of grasslands, understory in closed-cone pine stands | Bottoms, lowlands, wet forest, streamside forests, swamp forests, periodically inundated areas |
Elevation | 0-300 m (0-1000 ft) | 0-200 m (0-700 ft) |
Distribution |
CA
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AL; AR; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KY; LA; MD; MO; MS; NC; NJ; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA
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Discussion | Of conservation concern. Quercus pacifica is endemic on three of the California Channel Islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Catalina, and Santa Rosa. It is not known from the mainland, but it bears a superficial similarity to some of the tree forms that are putative hybrids between Q. engelmannii and Q. cornelius-mulleri in San Diego County. The latter populations, sometimes treated as Q. ×acutidens, differ in having much greater variability in leaf shape; thicker, more leathery leaves; denser abaxial leaf vestiture; much smaller hairs, having more than 10 rays; and variable levels of connation of cotyledons (always distinct in Q. pacifica). Quercus pacifica appears to be most closely related to Q. douglasii, whether by direct descent or by introgression with another species no longer extant on the islands. Quercus ×macdonaldii Greene (as a species) [= Quercus dumosa var. macdonaldii (Greene) Jepson] is a stabilized hybrid complex between Quercus pacifica and Q. lobata Née. The plants tend to be small to moderate trees with leaves that resemble those of Q. lobata; the leaves are much more shallowly lobed and always less than two-thirds the distance from the margin to the midrib. Quercus ×macdonaldii is known from Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Santa Catalina islands. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
The large acorns with hardened cups that enclose all or most of the nut are diagnostic. (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. dumosa var. polycarpa | Q. bicolor var. lyrata |
Name authority | Nixon & C. H. Muller: Novon 4: 391. (1994) | Walter: Fl. Carol., 235. (1788) |
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