''Quercus john-tuckeri'' is a North American 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 ...
known by the common name Tucker oak, or Tucker's oak.
[Nixon, K. C. and C. H. Muller. (1994). New names in California oaks. Novon 4:4 391-93.] It is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, where it grows in the
chaparral
Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...
and oak woodlands of mountain slopes in the western
Transverse Ranges
The Transverse Ranges are a group of mountain ranges of Southern California, in the Pacific Coast Ranges physiographic region in North America. The Transverse Ranges begin at the southern end of the California Coast Ranges and lie within Santa Ba ...
, the southernmost Central
Coast Ranges
The Pacific Coast Ranges (officially gazetted as the Pacific Mountain System in the United States; ; ) are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the West Coast of North America from Alaska south to Northern and Central Mexico. Althoug ...
, and the margins of the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...
. The species is named after
John M. Tucker, professor of botany (1947–1986) at the
University of California at Davis, specialist in ''Quercus.''
Description
''Quercus john-tuckeri'' is a bushy
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 ...
growing up to in height, sometimes becoming treelike, exceeding 6 m (20 ft). The branches are gray or brown, the twigs coated in short woolly fibers when new and becoming scaly with age. The
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 ...
leaves are leathery and thick, sometimes brittle. They are gray-green, the lower surface slightly paler. The undersides are hairy, the upper surfaces somewhat less so. The leaf blade is roughly oval, spine-toothed, and less than long. The fruit is an
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 ...
with a thin cap wide and a nut long.
See also
*
''Quercus'' × ''alvordiana''
References
External links
*
*
john-tuckeri
Endemic flora of California
Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands
Natural history of the California Coast Ranges
Natural history of the Mojave Desert
Natural history of the Santa Monica Mountains
Natural history of the Transverse Ranges
Plants described in 1952
{{Quercus-stub