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Quercus taxonomy
Quercus turbinella Greene
EOL Text
This oak is found in the California Desert Mountains (New York Mountains)/ The distribution outside California is east to Colorado and Texas, and south to Baja California, Mexico.
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Comments: Dry desert slopes, often in juniper and pinyon woodlands; 800-2000 m (Flora of North America, 1993). It grows in semiarid, lower elevation chaparral, pinyon-juniper (Pinus-Juniperus spp.), shrub deserts, oak woodlands, ponderosa pine (P. ponderosa) and riparian communities of the Southwest (Johnson, 1988; Tiedemann and Schmutz, 1967; Tucker, 1961; Welsh et al., 1987). It is a dominant shrub in Arizona chaparral and frequently comprises up to 50% of the shrub cover on these sites (Knipe et al., 1979; Pase, 1969). Soil: Shrub live oak grows well on dry hillsides and mesas and tolerates a wide range of soil types. Growth is best on sandy to clay loams. Soils are often slightly acidic (Davis and Pase, 1977). This oak is not restricted to deep soils and can grow on shallow, broken and fractured substrates (Davis and Pase, 1977; Saunier and Wagle, 1967). Soils are typically coarse-textured and poorly developed in shrub live oak chaparral (Ffolliott and Thorus, 1974).
More info for the terms: rhizome, shrub
Sonoran scrub oak reproduces through both sexual and vegetative means.
Sexual reproduction: Sonoran scrub oak produces small acorns which usually germinate and establish from late July through mid-September [8,93]. Germination often occurs shortly after acorn maturation and coincides with the summer rainy season [63]. Under laboratory conditions germination capacity may reach 95% [61].
Acorn production is largely dependent on the amount of precipitation received during the previous winter [63]. Dry summers may inhibit or retard acorn production [79,80]. In "good" years Sonoran scrub oak produces an abundance of acorns [79]. Total acorn failure, although rare, can occur [63,79]. Total crop failures may occur when October-March precipitation is less than 15 inches (38 cm) [63]. Generally, good crops are produced at 3- to 5-year intervals [61].
The vast majority of Sonoran scrub oak seedling mortality is apparently attributable to drought. In an Arizona study, seedling mortality during the first spring drought period following germination was 53%. Mortality rates appeared to decline by 3 years after germination [63].
Sonoran scrub oak acorns do not require a ripening period and frequently germinate while in storage. Shrub live oak acorns are characterized by a short period of viability, and seedbanking is unlikely. Pase [63] reports "there is probably a negligible carryover of seeds from 1 year to the next." Very few viable seeds remain 1 year after burial, due in large part to predation by insects, birds, and mammals [63].
Acorns are dispersed by numerous birds and mammals which eat and/or cache the acorns. Sonoran scrub oak seeds tend to be somewhat heavy, weighing an average of 0.046 to 0.053 ounce (1.3-1.5 g) per seed [30], and are consequently not transported long distances by most seed-dispersing animals. Scrub jays are particularly important dispersal agents. These birds generally "plant" single acorns at depths of 1.5 to 2 inches (4-5 cm), a few feet to a hundred feet from the parent plant. Rodents more often cache multiple seeds, which can germinate and produce groups of 10 to 20 or more seedlings at a single location. Seedling distribution indicates that, at least in many of the central Arizona sites studied, scrub jays play a much more significant role as dispersers than do rodents [63].
Seedlings are rarely encountered in the field [8,79,63]. Successful establishment is thought to require 15 inches (38 cm) or more of precipitation from October through March, followed by 10 inches (25 cm) or more from July to September [8,63]. These conditions are met in only 1 year out of 10 at many Arizona sites [63]. In laboratory experiments seedling roots grew to a depth of 1 foot (30 cm) prior to leaf development [16]. Plants only 12.9 inches (7.4 cm) in height had roots that extended to 21 inches (53 cm) in depth [8].
Vegetative reproduction: Sonoran scrub oak tends to increase more through rhizome sprouting than by seedling establishment [63,79]. Sonoran scrub oak sprouts vigorously after fire, application of herbicides, or mechanical treatment [8,16,65,79,100,105].
Quercus turbinella is a species of oak known by the common names Sonoran scrub oak, shrub live oak, and grey oak.[1] It is native to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States from far eastern California to southwest Colorado, Rio Grande New Mexico,[2] to west Texas.
Distribution[edit]
Quercus turbinella grows in woodland, chaparral, forest, and other habitat. It is most common in chaparral habitat in central Arizona,[3] through the transition zone of the Mogollon Rim–White Mountains, but also southeast Arizona in the Madrean Sky Island mountain ranges of sky islands.[4]
Description[edit]
Quercus turbinella is a shrub growing two to five meters in height but sometimes becoming treelike and exceeding six meters. 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 are up to three centimeters long by two 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 up to two centimeters long with a shallow warty cup about a centimeter wide.[5] This oak reproduces sexually via its acorns if there is enough moisture present, but more often it reproduces vegetatively by sprouting from its rhizome and root crown.[3]
This oak easily hybridizes with other oak species, including Quercus gambelii and Q. grisea.[3] Many species of animals use it for food, with wild and domesticated ungulates browsing the foliage and many birds and mammals eating the acorns.[3] Animals also use the shrub as cover, and mountain lions hide their kills in the thickets.[3]
References[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Quercus turbinella. |
- ^ "Calphotos".
- ^ Little. Atlas of United States Trees, Volume 3, Minor Western Hardwoods, Map 147, Quercus turbinella.
- ^ a b c d e US Forest Service Fire Ecology
- ^ Little. Map 147, Quercus turbinella.
- ^ Virginia Tech: Shrub live oak
Further reading[edit]
- Little. Atlas of United States Trees, Volume 3, Minor Western Hardwoods, Little, Elbert L, 1976, US Government Printing Office. Library of Congress No. 79-653298. Map 147, Quercus turbinella.
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Source | http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quercus_turbinella&oldid=640071831 |
More info for the term: shrub
Sonoran scrub oak is particularly common on many low winter ranges in southern Utah and Nevada and in chaparral-desert grassland ecotones in Arizona [8,94]. Sonoran scrub oak often grows in scattered patches in swales and canyons [94].
Soil: Sonoran scrub oak grows well on dry hillsides and mesas and tolerates a wide range of soil types [94]. Growth is best on sandy to clay loams [20]. Soils are often slightly acidic [16]. This oak is not restricted to deep soils and can grow on shallow, broken and fractured substrates [16,79]. Soils are typically coarse-textured and poorly developed in Sonoran scrub oak chaparral [24].
In eastern Yavapai County in central Arizona, soils developed from quartz diorite provide more favorable moisture regimes than do heavy clay soils developed from volcanics. In north-central Arizona, shrub live oak growing on less favorable, drier, sedimentary and volcanic substrates may be more susceptible to drought damage. Where root penetration is restricted, plants are more susceptible to damage from drought or fire [79].
Climate: Sonoran scrub oak is drought tolerant and typically occupies drier and warmer sites than Gambel oak [57,58]. In the northern part of its range, Sonoran scrub oak often grows on warm, dry, southern exposures [21]. Arizona chaparral is characterized by a biseasonal precipitation pattern with summer and winter precipitation and spring and fall droughts [16]. Annual precipitation averages 16 to 25 inches (410-640 mm) [24].
Elevation: Ranges of Sonoran scrub oak are as follows [20,32,56,80,101]:
4,000 to 8,000 ft (1,220-1,525 m) in AZ
3,934 to 10,492 ft (1,200-2,000 m) in CA
2,689 to 5,607 ft (820-1,710 m) in UT
More info on this topic.
More info for the term: phanerophyte
Phanerophyte
Formerly, California populations of what here is referred to as Quercus john-tuckeri have been included in the concept of Q . turbinella . Quercus john-tuckeri has subsessile fruit and noncordate leaf bases as opposed to the consistently pedunculate fruit and strongly cordate leaf bases of Q . turbinella . The two species seem to be no more closely related to each other than each might be to other southwestern oaks, and Q . john-tuckeri shares at least as many characteristics with Q . berberidifolia as with Q . turbinella . Thus, treatment of these two taxa as varieties of the same species is inappropriate.
Quercus turbinella forms putative hybrid swarms with Q . gambelii (see treatment), as well as with Q . grisea .
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More info for the terms: cover, formation, natural, series, shrub
Sonoran scrub oak grows in semiarid, lower elevation chaparral,
pinyon-juniper (Pinus-Juniperus spp.), shrub deserts, oak woodlands, ponderosa pine (P.
ponderosa) and riparian communities of the Southwest
[37,87,91,101]. It is a dominant shrub in Arizona chaparral and
frequently comprises up to 50% of the shrub cover on these
sites [42,63]. Published classifications listing Sonoran scrub oak as a dominant
or indicator species in community types or plant
associations are presented below.
Forest and woodland habitat types (plant associations) of
Arizona south of the Mogollon Rim and southwestern New Mexico [2]
Vegetation and soils of the Pine and Mathews Canyon watersheds
[5]
Arizona chaparral: plant associations and ecology [9]
Woodland classification: the pinyon-juniper formation [38]
Vegetation of the San Bernardino Mountains [51]
A series vegetation classification for Region 3 [53]
The natural vegetation of Arizona [59]
A vegetation classification system applied to southern California [66]
Plant associations (habitat types) of the forests and
woodlands of Arizona and New Mexico [85]
Vegetation and flora of Fort Bowie National Historic Site, Arizona
[98]
In Arizona chaparral, Sonoran scrub oak commonly occurs with pointleaf
manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens), Pringle manzanita
(A. pringlei), grama (Bouteloua spp.), mountain-mahogany
(Cercocarpus spp.), hollyleaf
buckthorn (Rhamnus crocea), sugar sumac (Rhus ovata),
desert ceanothus (Ceanothus greggii),
Emory oak (Quercus emoryi), yellowleaf silktassel (Garrya flavescens), wait-a-minute
bush (Mimosa biuncifera), yerba-santa (Eriodictyon angustifolium), broom snakeweed
(Gutierrezia sarothrae), and bottlebrush squirreltail
(Elymus elymoides) [16,24,25,42,74,70,79,87].
Common associates of Sonoran scrub oak in pinyon-juniper woodlands
include oneseed juniper (J. monosperma), Utah juniper
(J. osteosperma), singleleaf pinyon
(P. monophylla), Colorado pinyon (P. edulis), grama,
and skunkbush sumac (R. trilobata) [19,33].
Comments: Formerly, California populations of what here is referred to as Quercus john-tuckeri have been included in the concept of Quercus turbinella. Q. john-tuckeri has subsessile fruit and noncordate leaf bases as opposed to the consistently pedunculate fruit and strongly cordate leaf bases of Q. turbinella. The two species seem to be no more closely related to each other than each might be to other southwestern oaks, and Q. john-tuckeri shares at least as many characteristics with Quercus berberidifolia as with Q. turbinella. Thus, treatment of these two taxa as varieties of the same species is inappropriate (Tucker, 1961; Flora of North America, 1993). Varieties of Quercus turbinella are now recognized at the species level (Kartesz' 1999 data). Quercus turbinella var. ajoensis is treated as Q. ajoensis, and Q. turbinella var. californica as Q. john-tuckeri.
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