Californian white oak
| Californian white oak | ||||||||||||
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Californian white oak ( Quercus lobata ) |
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| Quercus lobata | ||||||||||||
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The Californian white oak ( Quercus lobata ) is a species from the genus of oaks ( Quercus ). The species is endemic to California .
description
Californian white oaks are deciduous trees that reach heights of up to 25 meters (in extreme cases up to 35 meters). The bark is gray, scaly and deeply grooved with age. The twigs are yellowish gray, rarely reddish and measure between 2 and 4 millimeters. They are dense or irregularly tomentose. The buds are yellowish or light brown and egg-shaped. They measure between 3 and 5 millimeters, are partially sharpened at the tip and densely hairy .
The leaves are stalked between 5 and 12 millimeters long. The blades are broadly inverted ovate or elliptical and moderately to deeply lobed. They measure 50 to 100 millimeters in length and between 30 and 60 millimeters in width. The base of the blade is narrowed, rounded, wedge-shaped or truncated, rarely almost heart-shaped. The leaf margin is usually incised up to half the distance from the midrib. The lobes are elongated, spatulate, blunt or rounded. 5 to 10 side ribs arise on each side of the midrib. The tip of the leaf is broadly rounded. The upper side of the leaf is whitish or light green and dense or irregular with interlocking, pressed, semi-upright, 8 to 10-rayed, star-shaped hairs. The underside is dark green or grayish, shiny or scaly due to scattered star-shaped hairs.
The acorns are almost sessile, individually or in pairs. The fruit cup is deeply bowl-shaped, hemispherical or top-shaped, wound with a thick rim. It is 10 to 30 millimeters deep and between 14 and 30 millimeters wide. The scales are gray to cream in color and taper towards the edge. They are mainly at the base, strong and irregularly warty. The nut is light brown, oblong or spindle-shaped and tapers to a sharp or rounded tip. It measures between 30 and 60 millimeters in length and 15 to 25 millimeters in width. The cotyledons are separate. The species blooms in late winter or early spring.
distribution
The Californian white oak grows on valley floors and flat slopes, open grasslands, savannas and oak forests as well as river banks in the chaparral at altitudes between 0 and 1,700 meters.
The species is endemic to California .
Systematics
The Californian white oak is in the section Leucobalanus (the white oaks) in the subgenus Quercus .
The species hybridizes with a variety of other oak species, but hybrids are rare in the range. In Santa Cruz Iceland and Santa Catalina Iceland , however, there is a stable population of hybrids with Quercus pacification , as Quercus × macdonaldii described were.
See also
literature
- Flora of North America , Volume 3, Page63.Accessed December 27, 2009 online
