Quercus turbinella |
Quercus laevis |
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grey oak, shrub live oak, Sonoran scrub oak, turbinella oak |
turkey oak |
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Habit | Shrubs or small trees, evergreen or subevergreen, to 4 m. Bark light gray or brown, scaly. | Trees or shrubs, deciduous, to 20 m. Bark bluish gray, deeply furrowed, inner bark orangish or reddish. |
Twigs | brown to gray, 1-3 mm diam., usually tomentulose, sometimes glabrous, becoming glabrate. |
dark reddish brown with distinct grayish cast, (1.5-)2-3.5(-4) mm diam., sparsely pubescent to almost glabrous. |
Buds | brown, round to ovoid, 1-2 mm, minutely pubescent. |
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Leaves | 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. |
blade circular or broadly ovate-elliptic, widest near or proximal to middle, 100-200 × 80-150 mm, base attenuate to acute, occasionally obtuse or rounded, blade decurrent on petiole, margins with 3-7(-9) lobes and 7-20 awns, lobes attenuate to falcate, occasionally oblong or distally expanded, apex acute to acuminate; surfaces abaxially occasionally orange-scurfy, usually glabrous except for conspicuous axillary tufts of tomentum, adaxially glabrous, secondary veins raised on both surfaces. |
Acorns | 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. |
biennial; cup somewhat goblet-shaped, 9-14 mm high × 16-24 mm wide, covering 1/3 nut, outer surface puberulent, inner surface pubescent, scales occasionally tuberculate, tips loose, especially at margin of cup, acute, margin conspicuously involute; nut ovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 17-28 × 12-18 mm, often faintly striate, glabrate, scar diam. 6-10 mm. |
Cotyledons | distinct. |
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Terminal | buds light brown to reddish brown, conic or narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, 5.5-12 mm, pubescent. |
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Quercus turbinella |
Quercus laevis |
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Phenology | Flowering spring. | Flowering early to mid spring. |
Habitat | Dry desert slopes, often in juniper and pinyon woodlands | Dry sandy soils of barrens, sandhills, and well-drained ridges |
Elevation | 800-2000 m (2600-6600 ft) | 0-150 m (0-500 ft) |
Distribution |
AZ; CA; CO; NM; NV; TX; UT; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora, and probably n Chihuahua)
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AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; VA
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Discussion | 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.) |
Quercus laevis reportedly hybridizes with Q. falcata (= Q. ×blufftonensis Trelease), Q. hemisphaerica, Q. incana, and Q. marilandica (C. S. Sargent 1918); with Q. nigra; and with Q. arkansana, Q. coccinea, Q. myrtifolia, Q. phellos, Q. shumardii, and Q. velutina (D. M. Hunt 1989). (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. Lobatae |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Q. dumosa var. turbinella, Q. subturbinella | Q. catesbaei |
Name authority | Greene: Ill. W. Amer. Oaks 1: 37. (1889) | Walter: Fl. Carol., 234. (1788) |
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