Plant Description
Shrub or small tree; bark light gray, rough, fissured; young twigs densely woolly (rarely without hairs), smooth reddish-brown beneath hairs, older twigs with few hairs, gray. Spring-deciduous.
Shrub or small tree to 20 feet tall. Leaf blades elliptic or oblong, spiny on margins, shallowly lobed, dull green above, densely hairy on lower surface, strongly net-veined on upper surface but not below.
Habitat
Found on arid slopes, often among chaparral and pinyon juniper woodlands.
Leaves
Typically dull green, finely haired beneath, elliptical to oblong, thick, stiff, spiny at margins.
Flowers
Male and female flowers separate but on the same plant; males in drooping 1 inch long catkins, yellowish-green; female flowers solitary, with 3 styles in leaf axils.
Fruit
Acorns up to 1 inch, solitary or several, elliptic, brown; with a scaly, shallow cup enclosing 1/4 to 1/3 of the nut; young acorns are yellowish-green.