Quercus laurina Bonpl.

This is an oak of modest horticultural merit. Grimshaw and Bayton reported in 2009 that it was ‘exceedingly scarce in cultivation’ and seemed bent on maintaining this scarcity, faulting its foliage for being ‘very dull dark green.’ They conceded that it was a ‘nicely upright, almost fastigiate tree with stiffly ascending branches’. It was this neat habit, in part, that inspired its epithet, laurina, referring to the appearance of common laurel (Laurus nobilis). The dull foliage, however, puts on a brief show of glamour when it emerges in spring with golden undersides, creating a pleasing though fleeting effect. Another notable feature, described by Heathcoat-Amory (2009) as its ‘most striking characteristic,’ is the pachydermatous bark. It is also of a transient nature, as it forms on young trees, but as the bark matures, the elephant-skin look fades.

Quercus laurina is widely distributed in Mexico and found between 1300 and 3200 m. It grows on deep soils and manages to survive on superficial or rocky soils, but it prefers the cool atmosphere of canyon bottoms next to streams, on steep or gentle slopes. In Michoacán, it grows on volcanic soils of neutral to slightly acidic pH (le Hardÿ de Beaulieu & Lamant 2010). Though its presence has been reported in Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador), this seems to be based on specimens that have been reidentified as something else.

Quercus laurina is reasonably hardy in temperate gardens. Le Hardy de Beaulieu and Lamant (2010) recommend a prudent choice of provenance in order to obtain optimal performance in zones with a temperate climate. In Aiken, South Carolina, it was badly damaged by a late frost on 15 March 2017, as it had already broken dormancy, exposing catkins and new growth to the cold snap (Russell 2017).

The earliest introduction to cultivation in Britain is from a Keith Rushforth collection (KR 471) in 1984. Trees from this seed are growing in Windsor Great Park in Berkshire (14 m × 58 cm dbh in 2021) and nearby in the Savill Garden (same height but more slender, 40 cm dbh), and also at Tregrehan in Cornwall (14.3 m × 30 cm dbh in 2024) (The Tree Register 2025). This tree had previously been labelled Q. major (a synonym of Q. laurina) and Q. affinis (a closely related species), presumably the reason they were under Grimshaw and Bayton’s radar in 2009, who mentioned only its presence in Chevithorne Barton, Devon. Four trees in that collection are listed by Heathcoat Amory (2009), the largest planted in 2003 and measuring 13.5 m × 15 cm dbh in 2017, according to The Tree Register (2025). Another introduction by Nick Macer (NJM 05.139) yielded several more specimens in UK gardens, one at Penrice in Wales (8 m in 2018, T. Methuen-Campbell, pers. comm. 2023).

In Europe it is found in several specialist collections, the oldest trees being from seed collected in Puebla by Allen Coombes in 1996 and growing at Arboretum de la Bergerette in France (S. Haddock, pers. comm. 2021).

Perhaps the earliest introduction to cultivation was by Bob Berry, who collected it in Hidalgo in 1982. A tree at his Hackfalls Arboretum in New Zealand was 19 m × 48 cm in 2004, comfortably the tallest specimen we know of. In 2020, dbh was 66 cm (the height was not recorded) (Hackfalls Arboretum 2025). At Guthrie-Smith Arboretum in Tutira, Hawke’s Bay, Q. laurina is one of several Mexican red oak species being trialled as timber trees. The trees have proven fast growing, though tending to multiple leaders with a narrow branch angle to the main stem. However, given that all trees are grown from seed of cultivated trees, it is likely that many of them are hybrids (E. Cairns, pers. comm. 2025).

Several collections hold the species in the United States, of which the oldest is at the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, matching Berry’s collection year of 1982. It was grown from seed collected in Sierra de San Juan Cosualá, Jalisco, at 2700 m. Despite its age, it is only around 5 m tall, with a dbh of about 8 cm (University of California Botanical Garden 2025; C. Lochran, pers. comm. 2025).

The species was first described by Aimé Bonpland, who saw it while traversing Mexico with Humboldt in May 1803. On an excursion through Guanajuato, he found oaks he described under three different names: Quercus chrysophylla, Q. laurina and Q. tridens. On another excursion the following August, he found near Santa Rosa de Lima another oak he described as Q. lanceolata. All of these are what is now known as Q. laurina. Bonpland was evidently of a splitting disposition, but one can hardly blame him, given that he was one of the first European botanists to encounter the brave new world of Mexican oaks. He was particularly impressed by the first of these oaks he described, Q. chrysophylla, of which he wrote that ‘the beauty of its foliage will make it preferable to a multitude of species that we cultivate in our English-style groves and gardens.’ The feature of the foliage that captivated him was the ‘beautiful gold colour of its leaves underneath,’ a characteristic that distanced it entirely, in his view, from all previously described species of the genus (Bonpland 1809). It turns out he was merely beguiled by the juvenile foliage of Q. laurina, which bears an abundance of amber-coloured glandular trichomes, making the leaf surface look golden (S. Valencia Ávalos, pers. comm. 2025). Bonpland encountered the same oak later in his expedition and the season, and he took it to be a different species. The attractiveness of the new growth of this oak can be seen in Owen Johnson’s photographs below of trees at Tregrehan and Windsor Great Park, taken in late spring/early summer, equivalent to the season Bonpland would have seen Q. chrysophylla in Mexico.

The variability of the species is evidenced by its plethoric synonymy, much of which can be ascribed to Trelease, who, like Bonpland, described several species later determined to be indistinguishable from Quercus laurina. Forms with larger leaves, closer to those of common laurel, were planted in Hackfalls as Q. bourgaei and Q. treleaseana by Bob Berry, who made of habit of ‘unlumping’ the various oaks he encountered on his Mexican travels (Cameron 2020). The taxonomy of trees in cultivation is further complicated by a readiness to hybridise with other section Lobatae oaks. It is closest to Q. affinis, from which it can be distinguished by the leaves that in Q. laurina are untoothed towards the base and broadest above the middle (Heathcoat Amory 2009).

The epithet laurina is Latin from laurus (= laurel) + ina (feminine suffix meaning ‘of, or pertaining to’) (Wiktionary 2025). In his protologue in Latin, Bonpland indicates the tree has a habit similar to Laurus nobilis (common laurel), while in his description in French, he writes that it is the foliage of the tree that resembles laurel (Bonpland 1809).