''Quercus geminata'', commonly called sand live oak, is an

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

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, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

native to the coastal regions of the subtropical

southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, along the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

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, 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 Texas, Louisiana, Mississ ...

westward to southern Mississippi,
"FloriData — Quercus geminata", Retrieved 2011-07-06 on seacoast Dune, dunes and on white sands in evergreen oak scrubs. 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 Trichomes (); ) are fine outgrowths or appendages on plants, algae, lichens, and certain protists. They are of diverse structure and function. Examples are hairs, glandular hairs, scales, and papillae. A covering of any kind of hair on a pl ...

, 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''). They contain many, usually unisexual flowers, arranged cl ...

s. The acorns are small, 1–2.5 cm, oblong-ellipsoid or ovoid, and are commonly born in pairs on peduncles of varying lengths. In coastal

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

's evergreen oak scrub, the sand live oak is a ubiquitous and abundant species; the threatened

Florida scrub-jay The Florida scrub jay (''Aphelocoma coerulescens'') is one of the species of scrub jay native to North America. It is the only species of bird endemic to the U.S. state of Florida and one of only 15 species endemic to the continental United State ...

is found only in

Florida scrub Florida sand pine scrub is an endangered subtropical forest ecoregion found throughout Florida in the United States. It is found on coastal and inland sand ridges and is characterized by an evergreen xeromorphic plant community dominated by shrub ...

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 not more closely related to each other than they are to other oaks. ...

s, having characteristics of the sand live oak and the

southern live oak ''Quercus virginiana'', also known as the southern live oak, is an evergreen oak tree endemic to the Southeastern United States. Though many other species are loosely called live oak, the southern live oak is particularly iconic of the Old South. ...

(''Q. virginiana''), grow further inland. It is believed that these specimens are hybrids of ''Q. geminata'' and ''Q. virginiana''. While

hybridization Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...

occurs between ''Q. geminata'' and ''Q. virginiana,'' the two species are genetically and morphologically distinct. The

Cuban oak ''Quercus sagraeana'', the Cuban oak, is a medium-sized evergreen tree native to western Cuba in the Cuban pine forests ecoregion. It is the only oak native to the Caribbean. Nomenclature The Cuban oak was first described by Nuttall (1842) as ...

, ''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 the Southeastern United States Plants described in 1897