Quercus turbinella

Shrub live oak, Shrub Live Oak

Family: Fagaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Conservation status: CNPS 4.3

Shrub live oak is a California native shrub found in the eastern Mojave Desert (excluding desert mountains other than New York Mountains) in pinyon and juniper woodland at elevations of 1,200 to 2,000 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces small greenish flowers on dense, fine-tomentose twigs. Growing as an evergreen shrub 2 to 5 meters tall, occasionally reaching tree size, it has a distinctive branching structure with densely covered stems. Its leathery leaves are oblong to elliptic, 1.5 to 3 centimeters long, with a dull gray-green upper surface and a lower surface covered in appressed-stellate and glandular yellow hairs, featuring regularly spine-toothed margins. The acorn cup is nearly hemispheric, 9 to 12 millimeters wide, with a yellow-brown nut 12 to 23 millimeters long that matures within one year.

Habitat: Pinyon/juniper woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 1200-2000 m

Bioregions: e DMoj (exc DMtns other than New York Mtns)

California counties: San Bernardino, Kern, Ventura, Riverside, Los Angeles, Imperial, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Inyo

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