Broadly conical deciduous tree to about 20 m or more tall, broadly conical. Bark blackish and platelike. Buds with slender, wiry stipules around them. Young shoots grey hairy. Leaves narrowly oblong, mostly 7-12 cm long, 2-6 cm wide, deep green and slightly rough above, grey hairy (stellate) below at first but becoming hairless, rounded or tapered at the base and tip, margin with pointed teeth that are sometimes deep, jagged and irregular with 4-9 teeth pairs on each side of the leaf cut one third to halfway to the midrib; colouring yellow-brown in autumn. Leaf stalk 0.5-2 cm long. Acorns in clusters of 1-4, short stalked, each to 3 cm long and half enclosed in a mossy cup with curled back scales, ripening in 2 years.

S Europe, W Asia

A source of timber.

Buds with wiry stipules; leaf teeth jagged and uneven; mossy acorn cup with scales bent back. At its extreme this species merges with Q. castaneifolia and hybrids of these two species may be found as are hybrids with Q. suber. However, the rough upper surface and fewer, deeper and irregular teeth, together with the extremely short spines on the leaf teeth, are generally distinctive.

ACT: Ainslie (Wakefield Ave); Red Hill (Esperance St). NSW: Jindabyne (lakeside opposite BP service station near shopping centre); Mt Wilson (Withycombe). VIC: Ballarat (Ballarat Botanical Gardens, 24 m tall with spread of 32 m-largest in Victoria); Domain (E of Melbourne City Council depot); Creswick (Sawpit Gully by old nursery site); Narbethong (St Fillans drive, 27 m in 1994); Prahran (Victoria Gardens); Riddells Creek (Walter J Smith Reserve).

 

f. laciniata (Loudon) Schneid. Leaves often narrower than those of the species, deeply cut, the lobes almost to the midrib and sometimes secondarily lobed.

SA: Adelaide (Adelaide Botanic Garden); Mt Gambier ('Barn Palais' restaurant). VIC: Maffra (Thompson St, Anglican Church, 14 m tall in 1992, acorn allegedly returned from Gallipoli); Malvern (S of Glenbrooke St, E side); Melbourne (Domain S side of Shrine); St Arnaud (street trees).

Source: Spencer, R. (1997). Fagaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.