''Quercus minima'', the dwarf live oak or minimal oak, is a North American species of shrubs in the beech family. It is native to the southeastern United States. It is placed in the southern live oaks section of the genus ''

Quercus 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 ...

'' ( section ''Virentes'').

Description

''Quercus minima'' is an

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has Leaf, foliage that remains green and functional throughout the year. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which lose their foliage completely during the winter or dry season. Consisting of many diffe ...

or semi-evergreen

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

rarely more than tall, reproducing by seed and also by means of underground

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

s. It commonly forms extensive cloned colonies with many stems, many of them unbranched. 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 alternate, up to long, and toothless or with irregular teeth or lobes. The lobes, when present, are usually spine-tipped. The leaves are retained through the winter, dropping just before or as new growth resumes in late winter or early spring.

Distribution

''Quercus minima'' is native to the coastal plain of the southeastern United States, primarily in Florida but extending from there to the

Carolinas The Carolinas, also known simply as Carolina, are the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina considered collectively. They are bordered by Virginia to the north, Tennessee to the west, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the southwes ...

and eastern

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. There are reports of the species also growing in Texas, but these populations appear to belong to other taxa.

Conservation

The IUCN conservation status is Least Concern (LC). The

NatureServe conservation status The NatureServe conservation status system, maintained and presented by NatureServe in cooperation with the Natural Heritage Network, was developed in the United States in the 1980s by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as a means for ranking or categor ...

is G5 Secure.''Quercus minima''. (n.d.). NatureServe. Retrieved December 2, 2024, from https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.145667/Quercus_minima

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3827372 minima Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of Florida Plants described in 1860 Flora without expected TNC conservation status