Quercus vacciniifolia |
Quercus turbinella |
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huckleberry oak |
grey oak, shrub live oak, Sonoran scrub oak, turbinella oak |
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Habit | Shrubs, low spreading to often prostrate, to 1.5 m. Twigs branching at 45° angles or less, reddish brown, 1-1.5 mm diam., flexible, glabrous to sparsely pubesent. | Shrubs or small trees, evergreen or subevergreen, to 4 m. Bark light gray or brown, scaly. |
Twigs | brown to gray, 1-3 mm diam., usually tomentulose, sometimes glabrous, becoming glabrate. |
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Buds | brown, round to ovoid, 1-2 mm, minutely pubescent. |
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Leaves | blade oblong-ovate, 10-35 × 7-15 mm, flat, thin, leathery, base slightly rounded to acute, secondary veins inconspicuous, 6-8 pairs, branching at 45-60° angles, with weakly thickened cell walls, margins entire or indistinctly and irregularly mucronately toothed, apex acute or rarely obtuse; surfaces abaxially whitish green with waxy layer, glabrous or slightly pubescent with stellate hairs, adaxially dull gray-green, glabrous or sparsely pubescent with stellate hairs. |
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 | solitary or rarely paired; cup shallowly saucer-shaped to slightly turbinate, 3-4 mm deep × 10-15 mm wide, scales appressed, slightly embedded, moderately silvery brown-pubescent; nut ovoid, 8-17 × 5-10 mm, apex acute; nut scar to 3 mm diam. |
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 conic, 2.5 mm, scales brown with ciliate margins. |
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Quercus vacciniifolia |
Quercus turbinella |
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Phenology | Flowering in early summer. | Flowering spring. |
Habitat | Dry ridges, steep slopes, and rocky areas from montane coniferous zone to near treeline | Dry desert slopes, often in juniper and pinyon woodlands |
Elevation | 900-2800 m (3000-9200 ft) | 800-2000 m (2600-6600 ft) |
Distribution |
CA; NV; OR
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AZ; CA; CO; NM; NV; TX; UT; Mexico (Baja California, Sonora, and probably n Chihuahua)
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Discussion | Typical high-elevation populations in the Sierra Nevada of California can be distinguished from all shrubby forms of Quercus chrysolepis by the absence of glandular trichomes and by thin cups with small nut-attachment scars. At lower elevations in northern California and southwestern Oregon, secondary contact with Q. chrysolepis has resulted in the formation of hybrids. (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. Protobalanus | Fagaceae > Quercus > sect. Quercus |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Q. dumosa var. turbinella, Q. subturbinella | |
Name authority | Hittell: Resources Calif. 101. (1863) — (as vaccinifolia) | Greene: Ill. W. Amer. Oaks 1: 37. (1889) |
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