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Quercus berberidifolia (California Scrub Oak) - A small slow growing and long-lived evergreen shrub that eventually can grow into a dense mound up to 9 to 10 feet tall by slightly wider. It has smooth gray to grey-green bark and small leathery holly-like leaves that on the undersides have only a few hairs (trichomes), distinguishing it from another related oak, Nuttall's Scrub Oak, Quercus dumosa - both species were previously lumped together under this latter name. Flowering occurs late winter to early spring with separate male catkins and female flowers on the same plant and with female flowers followed by small fat acorns that are also distinctively different from the narrow ones of Quercus dumosa.
Plant in full sun to part shade in a well-drained soil and water only occasionally (monthly) the first few years during summer months after planting and then infrequently to not at all once established. As a young plant California Scrub Oak can be a little open and scraggly, but with age it makes a nice informal screening shrub, a back of the garden dark green shrub as a foil to smaller lighter colored foliage or trimmed to be a more formal hedge or up as small shade tree.
Quercus berberidifolia is the coastal shrub oak that occupies the front range of the central and southern California coastal scrub community up to an elevation of about 2,000 feet and our plants grown from seed collected at Hay Hill in the Toro Canyon area of Santa Barbara County. The name for the genus is the old name know to denote oaks and was derived from the Celtic words 'quer' meaning fine and 'cuez' meaning tree. The specific epithet means "barberry-leaved" in reference to the spiny leaf margins that are like those of plants in the genus Berberis.
The information displayed on this page about Quercus berberidifolia is based on our research conducted about this plant from books in our nursery library as well as from information that is provided by reliable online resources. We also have included our own observations made about it as it grew in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers when we had them in our nursery field. We also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.
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