''Quercus polymorpha'', the Mexican white oak, Monterrey oak or netleaf white oak, is a North American species of oak. It is widespread in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, and known from a single population in the United States (about north of the Río Grande in Val Verde County, Texas) but widely planted as an ornamental.Texas A&M Forest Service, Trees of Texas
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Description

''Quercus polymorpha'' is a subevergreen tree up to 20 meters (67 feet) tall. The

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, ...

is gray or brown. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are elliptical or egg-shaped, up to 15 centimetres (6 inches) long, unlobed or with a few shallow rounded lobes.

Range and habitat

''Quercus polymorpha'' ranges across eastern and southern Mexico, in 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 f ...

and Sierra Madre de Oaxaca ranges, the Chiapas Highlands of southeastern Mexico, and scattered locations on the Mexican Plateau, Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, and Sierra Madre Occidental. It is found in the states of Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Coahuila, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Sinaloa, Michoacán, and Morelos. There is a single population in

Val Verde County Val Verde County is a County (United States), county located on the southern Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population is 47,586. Its county seat is Del Rio, Texas, Del Rio. In 1936, Val Verde County received Recorded Te ...

of southern Texas. There are scattered populations in the Guatemalan Highlands of central Guatemala, including Chiquimula, Huehuetenango, Jalapa, and Zacapa, and in western Honduras. The species grows in a variety of habitats, including deep canyons in the Sierra Madre Oriental, riparian gallery forests, the margins of thorn scrub forest, tropical dry forests, the lower margins of montane oak–pine forests, and

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

s. It is found from 400 to 2,100 meters elevation.

References

External links

photo of herbarium specimen collected in Nuevo León in 1991

includes photos * : includes photos {{Taxonbar, from=Q4112232 polymorpha Flora of Texas Oaks of Mexico Trees of Central America Plants described in 1830 Flora of the Central American pine–oak forests Flora of the Sierra Madre Oriental Flora of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca Cloud forest flora of Mexico Chiapas Highlands