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Quercus × hastingsii Sarg.

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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 × hastingsii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-x-hastingsii/). Accessed 2026-06-18.

Family

  • Fagaceae

Genus

  • Quercus
  • Subgen. Quercus, Sect. Lobatae
    Q. buckleyi × Q. marilandica

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

hybrid
Plant originating from the cross-fertilisation of genetically distinct individuals (e.g. two species or two subspecies).
type specimen
A herbarium specimen cited in a taxonomic account to define a particular species or other taxon.

Credits

Allen Coombes & Roderick Cameron (2026)

Recommended citation
Coombes, A. & Cameron, R. (2026), 'Quercus × hastingsii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-x-hastingsii/). Accessed 2026-06-18.

Quercus × hastingsii

The rather small and deeply cut, glossy green leaves make Quercus × hastingsii an attractive tree. Chevithorne Barton, Devon, UK. August 2011. Image © James MacEwen.

Tree to 15 m tall and 25 cm or more dbh, sometimes with several trunks, bark dark grey, deeply fissured. Young shoots densely tomentose. Leaves deciduous, closest to those of Q. buckleyi but less deeply lobed, broadly obovate to ovate, to 7 × 6 cm, with 1–2 lobes on each side, rarely unlobed, lobes oblong to triangular, smallest at the base, ending in a bristle-tipped tooth, the larger lobes with up to 3 teeth, the terminal lobe often shallowly 3-lobed at the apex, base rounded to broadly tapered or nearly truncate. They are glossy dark green and glabrous above, paler beneath, with the midrib pubescent and tufts of hairs in the vein axils. Petiole slender, pubescent, to 12 mm long. Cup turbinate with loosely appressed tomentose scales. (Sargent 1918).

Distribution  United States Texas

USDA Hardiness Zone 5

RHS Hardiness Rating H6

The name commemorates Stephen Harold Hastings of the United States Agricultural Experimental Station at San Antonio, Texas, who collected the type specimen in 1910 (Sargent 1918).

A tree at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was 11 m × 29 cm in 2022 and originated as a scion from the Arnold Arboretum, Massachusetts, USA, from a tree accessioned in 1925. Several younger trees, accessioned in the 1990s or early 2000s, are found in oak collections and parks in the UK, among them a tree at Windsor Great Park, accessioned in 1999 but already of a size comparable to the tree at Kew: 8.5 m × 28 cm (The Tree Register 2025). A tree at Arboretum Trompenburg, the Netherlands, planted in 1988, came from Kew, which is likely to be the source of most cultivated plants in Europe. According to van Hoey Smith (2001), it replaced an older tree of the same hybrid that had died.

Quercus × hastingsii

Quercus × hastingsii bark on the Kew tree in August 2021. Image Maricela Rodríguez.

Quercus × hastingsii

Some leaves of Quercus × hastingsii are attractively pinnately lobed. Kew, August 2021. Image Maricela Rodríguez.

Quercus × hastingsii

Some vigorous shoots on Quercus × hastingsii have leaves that are distinctly 3-lobed. Kew, August 2021. Image Maricela Rodríguez.

Quercus × hastingsii

Quercus × hastingsii foliage at Arboretum du Passadou, France, in July 2021. Image Jean-Louis Hélardot.

Quercus × hastingsii

Quercus × hastingsii foliage at Arboretum Het Leen, Eeklo, Belgium, in 2010. Image ©Jan De Langhe, Ghent University Botanical Garden, 2010.

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