Quercus berberidifolia

Scrub oak, Scrub Oak

Family: Fagaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Scrub oak is a California native shrub found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, California Ranges, Sierra Nevada Foothills, Tehachapi Mountains, Sutter Buttes, central Western California, and southwestern California in dry slopes and chaparral at elevations of 100 to 1,800 meters. Flowering from February to April, this plant produces small, inconspicuous flowers in its evergreen canopy. Growing as a dense shrub 1 to 3 meters tall or occasionally as a small tree to 8 meters, it develops a sturdy, multi-stemmed structure. Its leathery leaves are oblong to nearly round, 1.5 to 3 centimeters long, with a shiny green upper surface and pale green underside covered in minute stellate hairs, featuring distinctively spine-toothed margins. The mature acorns develop in thick, hemispheric cups 12 to 20 millimeters wide, with nuts 10 to 30 millimeters long that ripen within a single year.

Habitat: dry slopes, chaparral

Bloom period: Feb-Apr

Elevation: 100-1800 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaRH, SNF, Teh, ScV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SW

California counties: Los Angeles, Riverside, Lake, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Kern, Orange, San Bernardino, Alameda, Tuolumne, Butte, Mendocino, Monterey, Contra Costa, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Marin, Napa, Shasta, Tehama, Solano, Sonoma, Colusa, Placer, Glenn, Santa Clara, Sutter, San Benito, El Dorado, Nevada, Yuba, Santa Cruz, Mariposa, Tulare, San Mateo, Yolo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.