Quercus xalapensis Bonpl.

Quercus xalapensis has been plagued by misidentification and mislabeling, being confused with other species such as Q. sartorii, Q. paxtalensis, Q. canbyi, Q. cupreata, and Q. skinneri. Current consensus is that this is a rare cloud forest species with a relatively scattered distribution in SE Mexico, along the Sierra Madre Oriental, and the northern countries of Central America. It was previously rated as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List but was reclassified in 2018. Though climate change modelling is projected to lead to a 60% loss of suitable habitat for this species, it is uncertain whether there is a linear relationship between habitat decline and population decline. Due to these uncertainties, Q. xalapensis was assessed as Least Concern, but climate change impacts could drive it to become Near Threatened (Jerome 2018). According to Pérez-Mojica and Valencia (2017), it grows on shallow, sandy, slightly acidic soils.

The species was introduced to cultivation by Bob Berry at Hackfalls Arboretum, New Zealand, in 1982, from seed collected at Xalapa Botanic Garden (Jardín Botánico Clavijero). The source was recorded as ‘wild-collected seed’, indicating it was possibly collected in the forest next to the botanical garden, now known as Santuario del Bosque de Niebla (Cloud Forest Sanctuary). Berry travelled there on an International Dendrology Society tour, and according to the report, the young Botanical Garden, created in 1975, covered about 8 ha and included some old woodland (Heine 1983). Three trees from this accession grow at Hackfalls, the largest measuring 15 m in 2016 and 75 cm in dbh in 2020. Another tree from the same accession appears to be a hybrid, with apparently annual maturation and almost entire leaves with fewer veins and a shorter petiole; it was 15 m tall in 2016, and its trunk was 80 cm in diameter in 2020. Berry collected the species again in 1984, in Xicotepec de Juárez, in northern Puebla. A tree from this accession measured 17.8 m × 41 cm in 2020. A third introduction followed in 1987, from El Paraíso, Puebla (Hackfalls Arboretum 2025).

One of the finest trees in cultivation is in Australia at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne. The accession date is not recorded, but is likely to be in the early 80s, as it is of a similar size to the trees at Hackfalls: in 2025 it measured 16 m × 65 cm, with a canopy 17 m across (P. Berbee, pers. comm.). Several specimens grow at Mereweather Arboretum, Hamilton, Victoria. According to Ben and Kim Cerlienco (pers. comm. 2025), a few seedlings appear in rare plant nurseries in Australia, suggesting there may be another tree in Victoria somewhere.

Quercus xalapensis was introduced to the UK from a 1983 James Russell collection, also from Xalapa Botanic Garden. Received as Q. polymorpha, it was later determined to be Q. xalapensis. It impressed Grimshaw and Bayton (2009), who found it attractive enough to recommend it be sought again in Mexico, preferably from higher altitudes, as specimens from Xalapa have proved tender at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire. Despite the recommendation, only a few specimens are found in collections as young trees, and the Tree Register (2025) records only three trees at Kew: the 1983 accession (15 m × 47 cm in 2022) and two slightly smaller trees from a second accession in 1984.

A 2004 introduction by Francisco Garin, also from Jardín Botánico Clavijero in Xalapa, has spawned trees in Iturraran, Spain and in Arboretum de la Bergerette and Arboretum des Pouyouleix, France, where they have grown well and reached around 8 m (F. Garin, pers. comm. 2025).

The species was first described by Aimé Bonpland in Plantae Aequinoctiales (Bonpland 1809), having seen it while travelling through Mexico with Alexander von Humboldt. He reports that they found forests of this oak near the small town of Xalapa, at 1320 m elevation. He remarked that Quercus xalapensis was, together with Q. acutifolia, one of the more majestic trees he had seen in Mexico, and compared the wood of Q. xalapensis to that of Q. robur, suggesting that it could be used for the same purposes as the European species. He gives the Spanish name locals used for this oak: roble de duela. This name was applied in Spain to oaks used to make the staves of barrels in which to age alcoholic beverages; it derives from Latin doga (‘vat, vessel’) (Wiktionary 2025). This was nearly the first Mexican oak to be introduced to European cultivation. Bonpland found this oak towards the end of January, and it was laden with acorns. He picked ‘a very large number’ and intended to take them to Europe. However, the acorns started germinating while Bonpland was crossing from Veracruz to Havana, so he left them there with Don Joseph-Nicholas de Peralta, ‘whose zeal for botany made him establish a garden where he cultivates a large number of plants from various countries’. Bonpland gave him instructions on how to grow the oaks, and by the time he published the description of the species in 1809 he felt sure Mr. Peralta’s oaks must be already large trees. This sounds a bit optimistic for five years of growth; anyway, there is no evidence that these trees survived.

The epithet xalapensis means ‘of Xalapa’. The name Xalapa derives from Náhuatl and is said to mean ‘place of sandy waters’ or ‘spring in the sand’. According to Salma Lara (Lara 2024), it derives from three words: xallac (‘sand’) + atl (‘water’) + pan (the preposition ‘in’). How those three words combine to form Xalapa is not clear, but perhaps it was originally xallac-atl-pan and then was shortened with use. Xalapensis is used many times in plant names, but Bonpland was the first to publish a name with this epithet (IPNI 2025).