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Quercus turbinella is a North American species of oak known by the common names shrub oak, turbinella oak, shrub live oak, and gray oak.[3][4][5] It is native to Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada in the western United States.[3] It also occurs in northern Mexico.[6]

Quercus turbinella
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Rosids
Order:	Fagales
Family:	Fagaceae
Genus:	Quercus
Subgenus:	Quercus subg. Quercus
Section:	Quercus sect. Quercus
Species:	Q. turbinella
Binomial name
Quercus turbinella Greene
Natural range
Synonyms[2]
Quercus dumosa subsp. turbinella (Greene) A.E.Murray Quercus dumosa var. turbinella (Greene) Jeps. Quercus subturbinella Trel.

Description

Quercus turbinella is a shrub growing 2–5 metres (6+1⁄2–16+1⁄2 feet) in height but sometimes becoming treelike and exceeding 6 m (20 ft). The branches are gray or brown, the twigs often coated in short woolly fibers when young and becoming scaly with age. The thick, leathery evergreen leaves are up to 3 centimetres (1+1⁄4 inches) long by 2 cm (3⁄4 in) wide and are edged with large, spine-tipped teeth. They are gray-green to yellowish in color and waxy in texture on the upper surfaces, and yellowish and hairy or woolly and glandular on the lower surfaces. The males catkins are yellowish-green and the female flowers are in short spikes in the leaf axils, appearing at the same time as the new growth of leaves. The fruit is a yellowish brown acorn up to two centimeters long with a shallow warty cup about a centimeter wide.[6] This oak reproduces sexually via its acorns if there is enough moisture present, but more often it reproduces vegetatively by sprouting from its rhizome and root crown.[5][3]

Distribution

Quercus turbinella has been found in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, southern California, and western Texas, as well as Baja California.[7][4] In California, it occurs in the New York mountains and a few eastern California desert ranges. The populations on the desert mountains in the western Mojave desert and the inner coastal ranges are now considered Quercus john-tuckeri.[8][9] It grows in woodland, chaparral, forest, and other habitat. It is most common in chaparral habitat in central Arizona,[5] through the transition zone of the Mogollon Rim–White Mountains, but also southeast Arizona in the Madrean Sky Island mountain ranges of sky islands.[10]

Ecology

Quercus turbinella easily hybridizes with other oak species, including Quercus gambelii, Q. havardii, Q. arizonica, and Q. grisea.[5] Many species of animals use it for food, with wild and domesticated ungulates browsing the foliage and many birds and mammals eating the acorns.[5] Animals also use the shrub as cover, and mountain lions hide their kills in the thickets.[5]

See also

• Quercus × alvordiana

References

External links

• Jepson eFlora, The Jepson Herbarium, University of California, Berkeley
• Flora of North America; flora of North America RangeMap
• Quercus turbinella in the CalPhotos photo database, University of California, Berkeley

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