Shrub Live Oak
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''Quercus turbinella'' 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 names shrub oak, turbinella oak, shrub live oak, and gray oak. It is native to Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada in the western United States. It also occurs in northern Mexico.Virginia Tech: Shrub live oak


Description

''Quercus turbinella'' is a
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 in height but sometimes becoming treelike and exceeding . The branches are gray or brown, the twigs often coated in short woolly fibers when young and becoming scaly with age. The thick, leathery evergreen
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 up to long by wide and are edged with large, spine-tipped teeth. They are gray-green to yellowish in color and waxy in texture on the upper surfaces, and yellowish and hairy or woolly and glandular on the lower surfaces. The males catkins are yellowish-green and the female flowers are in short spikes in the leaf axils, appearing at the same time as the new growth of leaves. The fruit is a yellowish brown
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 ...
up to two centimeters long with a shallow warty cup about a centimeter wide. This oak reproduces sexually via its acorns if there is enough moisture present, but more often it reproduces
vegetatively Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is a form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or Cutting (plant), cutting of the parent pl ...
by sprouting from its
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 ...
and root crown.


Distribution

''Quercus turbinella'' has been found in
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
,
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
,
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
,
Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
,
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...
, southern
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 ...
, and western
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
, as well as
Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...
. In California, it occurs in the New York mountains and a few eastern California desert ranges. The populations on the desert mountains in the western Mojave desert and the inner coastal ranges are now considered ''
Quercus john-tuckeri ''Quercus john-tuckeri'' is a North American species of oak 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 to California, where it grows in ...
''.SEINet, Southwestern Biodiversity, Arizona chapter
photos, description, interactive distribution map It grows in woodland,
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 ...
, forest, and other habitat. It is most common in chaparral habitat in central Arizona, through the transition zone of the
Mogollon Rim The Mogollon Rim ( or or ) is a topography, topographical and geological feature cutting across Northern Arizona, the northern half of the U.S. state of Arizona. It extends approximately , starting in northern Yavapai County, Arizona, Yavapa ...
– White Mountains, but also southeast Arizona in the Madrean Sky Island mountain ranges of
sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...
s.


Ecology

''Quercus turbinella'' easily hybridizes with other oak species, including ''
Quercus gambelii ''Quercus gambelii'', with the common name Gambel oak, is a deciduous small tree or large shrub that is widespread in the foothills and lower mountains of western North America. It is also regionally called scrub oak, oak brush, and white oak. T ...
'', '' Q. havardii'', '' Q. arizonica'', and '' Q. grisea''. Many species of animals use it for food, with wild and domesticated
ungulate Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Euungulata ("true ungulates"), which primarily consists of large mammals with Hoof, hooves. Once part of the clade "Ungulata" along with the clade Paenungulata, "Ungulata" has since been determined ...
s browsing the foliage and many birds and mammals eating the acorns. Animals also use the shrub as cover, and
mountain lions The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, '' KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North, Central and South America, making it the most widely distributed wild ...
hide their kills in the thickets.


See also

* ''Quercus'' × ''alvordiana''


References


External links

*
Flora of North Americaflora of North America RangeMap
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3006230
turbinella ''Turbinella'' is a genus of very large sea snails with an operculum, marine gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Turbinellinae of the family Turbinellidae.Bouchet, P. (2011). Turbinella Lamarck, 1799. Accessed through: World Register of Marin ...
Trees of Northern America Flora of the California desert regions Flora of the Sonoran Deserts Natural history of the Colorado Desert Natural history of the Mojave Desert Plants described in 1889 Oaks of Mexico