''Quercus castanea'' is a species of

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

tree. It is widespread across much of Mexico, from

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

Chiapas Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises Municipalities of Chiapas, 124 municipalities and its capital and large ...

, and in Central America.

Description

It is a

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

tree up to tall with a trunk as much as in diameter. The

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are thick and leathery, up to long, and elliptical with numerous pointed teeth along the edges.Romero Rangel, S., E. C. Rojas Zenteno & M. L. Aguilar Enríquez. 2002. El género ''Quercus'' (Fagaceae) en el estado de México. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 89(4): 551–593
in Spanish, with line drawings of each species It flowers from March to June, and its

acorn The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

s mature between October and December. The species hybridizes with other

sympatric In biology, two closely related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter each other. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct spe ...

red oak species across its range.

Distribution and habitat

''Quercus castanea'' is native to the mountains of Mexico,

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

, and

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

.McVaugh, R. 1974. Flora Novo-Galiciana: Fagaceae. Contributions from the University of Michigan Herbarium 12(1,3): 1–93
/ref> In Mexico, the species inhabits the

Sierra Madre Oriental The Sierra Madre Oriental () is a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that ...

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt The Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (), also known as the Transvolcanic Belt and locally as the (''Snowy Mountain Range''), is an active volcanic belt that covers central-southern Mexico. Several of its highest peaks have snow all year long, and dur ...

Sierra Madre de Oaxaca The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca is a mountain range in southeastern Mexico. It is primarily in the state of Oaxaca, and extends north into the states of Puebla and Veracruz. Geography The mountain range begins at Pico de Orizaba, and extends in a sout ...

, and

Sierra Madre del Sur The Sierra Madre del Sur is a mountain range in southern Mexico, extending from southern Michoacán east through Guerrero, to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in eastern Oaxaca. Geography The Sierra Madre del Sur joins with the Eje Volcánico Transv ...

between elevation. It also inhabits the Sierra Madre de Chiapas of Mexico Mexico and Guatemala, and the Montecristo Massif where the borders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras meet. In Guatemala, ''Q. castanea'' has been reported up to elevation. The species' estimated

extent of occurrence Extent may refer to: Computing * Extent (file systems), a contiguous region of computer storage medium reserved for a file * Extent File System, a discontinued file system implementation named after the contiguous region * Extent, a chunk of st ...

is , based on over 500 collections and herbarium records. The species is found in a variety of montane habitats. It is common in dry oak forests,

xerophytic A xerophyte () is a species of plant that has adaptations to survive in an environment with little liquid water. Examples of xerophytes include cactus, cacti, pineapple and some gymnosperm plants. The morphology (biology), morphology and physiology ...

shrublands, and open oak woodlands alongside cacti and trees of family Leguminaceae. It also grows in humid montane

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

s. In the Cuitzeo Basin of central Mexico, acorn woodpeckers (''Melanerpes formicivorus'') and golden-fronted woodpeckers (''Melanerpes aurifrons'') are important acorn dispersers.

References

External links

Photo of herbarium specimen at Missouri Botanical Garden, collected in Oaxaca in 1894
{{Taxonbar, from=Q6323405 castanea Oaks of Mexico Flora of the Sierra Madre Occidental Flora of the Sierra Madre Oriental Flora of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt Flora of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca Flora of the Sierra Madre del Sur Flora of the Central American montane forests Sierra Madre de Chiapas Flora of the Chiapas Highlands Trees of Northern America Trees of Guatemala Trees of El Salvador Trees of Honduras Plants described in 1801