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Quercus inopina Ashe

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Kindly sponsored by
The Trees and Shrubs Online Oak Consortium

The International Dendrology Society, The Wynkcoombe Arboretum, and several private individuals

Credits

Allen Coombes & Roderick Cameron (2026)

Recommended citation
Coombes, A. & Cameron, R. (2026), 'Quercus inopina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-inopina/). Accessed 2026-07-19.

Family

  • Fagaceae

Genus

  • Quercus
  • Subgen. Quercus, Sect. Lobatae

Common Names

  • Sandhill Oak

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
herbarium
A collection of preserved plant specimens; also the building in which such specimens are housed.
included
(botanical) Contained within another part or organ.
protologue
Text of first publication of a taxon’s name.

Credits

Allen Coombes & Roderick Cameron (2026)

Recommended citation
Coombes, A. & Cameron, R. (2026), 'Quercus inopina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-inopina/). Accessed 2026-07-19.

Quercus inopina

The leaves of this shrubby species are characteristically held upright and have recurved margins. Arboretum des Pouyouleix, France, August 2021. This plant was grown from seed collected in Shadow Bay park, Orange County, Florida in 2013. The toothing is unusual. Image Béatrice Chassé.

Shrub or more rarely a tree to 6 m tall, with a large underground rhizome. Young shoots glabrous or sparsely hairy, green when young, becoming purple-brown. Leaves evergreen, held upright, ovate to obovate, to 9 × 5 cm, the margins strongly recurved. Apex rounded, with a single tooth, base tapered to cordate. They are glabrous or nearly so above with a scurfy yellow-brown tomentum beneath. Fruits solitary or in pairs on a very short peduncle. Cupules cup-shaped to bowl-shaped, to 8 × 15 mm, with tightly appressed scales, acorn ovoid to broadly ellipsoid, to 14 × 13 mm, ⅓ to ½ included in the cup and ripening the second year. (Jensen 1997; Johnson & Abrahamson 1982; Ashe 1929).

Distribution  United States Florida

Habitat Sandy soils on sandhill ridges, scrub communities, and flat upland terraces from sea level to 50 m elevation.

USDA Hardiness Zone 7

RHS Hardiness Rating H4

Conservation status Least concern (LC)

Quercus inopina is closely related to and has been included in Q. myrtifolia, but it differs in its larger leaves that have recurved margins and are yellow-scurfy beneath.

It is rare in cultivation, but there are three plants at Arboretum des Pouyouleix, France, deriving from seed collected at Shadow Bay Park, Orange County, Florida. The largest there was 1.2 m tall with two stems in 2021 (B. Chassé, pers. comm.) This collection is slightly unusual as, although it appears correctly named, some leaves have several teeth towards the apex, a feature not seen in wild-collected herbarium specimens and possibly caused by vigorous growth in cultivation. The same collection is at Iturraran Botanical Garden, Spain.

The epithet ‘inopina’ is Latin for ‘unexpected’, but its significance to this species was not explained by the author, unless he did not expect to find a new species. In the introduction to the protologue, he referred to it as ‘an oak which was so different from any other species of the southeastern states as to deserve notice’ (Ashe 1929).

Quercus inopina

(Untoothed) foliage of Quercus inopina in Aiken, South Carolina (2 December 2010). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Quercus inopina

Foliage of Quercus inopina at Iturraran Botanical Garden, Spain (17 November 2011). Image © Jan De Langhe - Arboretum Wespelaar.

Quercus inopina

Foliage of Quercus inopina at Iturraran Botanical Garden, Spain in August 2021. Image Francisco Garin.

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