''Quercus geminata'', commonly called sand live oak, 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 ...

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 In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

native to the coastal regions of the subtropical southeastern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, along the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

Coast from southern Florida northward to southeastern Virginia and along the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

westward to southern Mississippi,
"FloriData — Quercus geminata", Retrieved 2011-07-06 on seacoast Dune, dunes and on white sands in evergreen oak scrubs.

Taxonomy

''Quercus geminata'' 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'').

Appearance

A small- to medium-sized tree, the sand live oak is scrubby and forms thickets. The bark is dark, thick, furrowed, and roughly ridged. The leaves are thick, leathery, and coarsely veined, with extremely revolute margins, giving them the appearance of inverted shallow bowls; their tops dark green, their bottoms dull gray and very tightly tomentose, and their petioles densely pubescent, they are simple and typically flat with bony-opaque margins, having a length of and a width of . The male flowers are green hanging

catkin A catkin or ament is a slim, cylindrical flower cluster (a spike), with inconspicuous or no petals, usually wind- pollinated ( anemophilous) but sometimes insect-pollinated (as in '' Salix''). It contains many, usually unisexual flowers, arra ...

s. The acorns are small, 1–2.5 cm, oblong-ellipsoid or ovoid, and are commonly born in pairs on peduncles of varying lengths. The Florida Native Plant Society describes the plant as "Extremely drought tolerant" and a long-lived perennial.

Description

In coastal

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

's evergreen oak scrub, the sand live oak is a ubiquitous and abundant species; the threatened Florida scrub-jay is found only in

Florida scrub Florida scrub is a forest ecoregion found throughout Florida in the United States. It is found on coastal and inland sand ridges and is characterized by an evergreen Xerophyte, xeromorphic plant community dominated by shrubs and dwarf oaks. Becau ...

Live oak Live oak or evergreen oak is any of a number of oaks in several different sections of the genus ''Quercus'' that share the characteristic of evergreen foliage. These oaks are generally not more closely related to each other than they are to o ...

s, having characteristics of the sand live oak and the southern live oak (''Q. virginiana''), grow further inland.

Hybrids

It is believed that these specimens are hybrids of ''Q. geminata'' and ''Q. virginiana''. While hybridization occurs between ''Q. geminata'' and ''Q. virginiana,'' the two species are genetically and morphologically distinct. The Cuban oak, '' Q. sagraeana'', has been purported to be a hybrid between the sand live oak and '' Q. oleoides'', but recent evidence suggests that the Cuban oak is a separate species without hybrid origin.

References

External links

"Carolina Nature – Will Cook's Web Site"
– close-up photographs {{Taxonbar, from=Q4112997 geminata Trees of Northern America Plants described in 1897