Quercus hypargyrea (Seemen ex Diels) C.C. Huang & Y.T. Chang

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Credits

Allen Coombes & Roderick Cameron (2022)

Recommended citation
Coombes, A. & Cameron, R. (2022), 'Quercus hypargyrea' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-hypargyrea/). Accessed 2024-03-18.

Genus

  • Quercus
  • Subg. Cerris, Sect. Cyclobalanopsis

Common Names

  • 多脉青冈 (duo mai qing gang)

Synonyms

  • Cyclobalanopsis hypargyrea (Seemen ex Diels) Y.C. Hsu & H. Wei Jen
  • Cyclobalanopsis multinervis W.C. Cheng & T. Hong
  • Quercus glauca var. hypargyrea Seemen ex Diels
  • Quercus multinervis (W.C. Cheng & T. Hong) Govaerts not Lesq.
  • Quercus stenophylla var. hypargyrea (Seemen ex Diels) A. Camus

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

acorn
Fruit of Quercus; a single-seeded nut set in a woody cupule.
bloom
Bluish or greyish waxy substance on leaves or fruits.
glaucous
Grey-blue often from superficial layer of wax (bloom).
pubescent
Covered in hairs.
synonym
(syn.) (botanical) An alternative or former name for a taxon usually considered to be invalid (often given in brackets). Synonyms arise when a taxon has been described more than once (the prior name usually being the one accepted as correct) or if an article of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has been contravened requiring the publishing of a new name. Developments in taxonomic thought may be reflected in an increasing list of synonyms as generic or specific concepts change over time.
taxon
(pl. taxa) Group of organisms sharing the same taxonomic rank (family genus species infraspecific variety).
variety
(var.) Taxonomic rank (varietas) grouping variants of a species with relatively minor differentiation in a few characters but occurring as recognisable populations. Often loosely used for rare minor variants more usefully ranked as forms.

Credits

Allen Coombes & Roderick Cameron (2022)

Recommended citation
Coombes, A. & Cameron, R. (2022), 'Quercus hypargyrea' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/quercus/quercus-hypargyrea/). Accessed 2024-03-18.

Tree to 15 m tall. Bark smooth, grey-brown. Young shoots tomentose, later glabrous, with conspicuous white lenticels. Leaves evergreen, oblong-ovate to oblong-elliptic, to 15 × 6 cm. tapered to rounded at the base, abruptly acuminate at the apex, lateral veins up to 15 on each side of the midrib, margined with small teeth mainly above the centre of the leaf. Leaves emerge silky hairy on both sides becoming glossy dark green above and glaucous beneath with a bloom that is easily removed. Petiole to 3 cm long. Infructescences to 2 cm with up to 6 cupules. Cupules hemispherical, to 8 × 15 mm with 6–7 rings of scales. Acorn ellipsoid, to 2 × 1 cm, about 1/3 to ½ enclosed in the cup and ripening the second year. (le Hardÿ de Beaulieu & Lamant 2010; Huang et al. 1999).

Distribution  China Anhui, Fujian, Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan

Habitat Mountain forests at 500–2600 m.

USDA Hardiness Zone 7

RHS Hardiness Rating H5

Conservation status Least concern (LC)

Taxonomic note This species is better known as Quercus multinervis, but this name was applied by French botanist Léo Lesquereux (1859) to a fossil collected by American geologist Dr. John Evans from Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, and predates the publication of Cyclobalanopsis multinervis W.C. Cheng & T. Hong in 1963.

A tree at l’Arboretum National des Barres, France, was grown from seed received in 1901 and collected by Paul Farges from Heou-pin (Houping) near Chengkou, E Sichuan at 1400 m. The identity of this tree has long been uncertain. It was grown as Q. vibrayeana (= Q. glauca) and then Q. oxyodon but was later identified as Q. liboensis, which is now regarded as a synonym of Q. glauca. It has also been called Q. ciliaris, a renaming of Q. glauca var. gracilis, which was regarded by Rehder & Wilson as similar to Q. myrsinifolia but with the pubescent leaf undersides of Q. glauca. The des Barres tree differs very significantly in having much larger leaves to 14 × 6 cm with a glaucous bloom beneath and does not resemble these species. This tree was about 15 m tall in 1996 and in 2004, an acorn was seen on it, apparently of annual maturation (pers. obs.). It occasionally produces seed and a plant of this source at Arboretum des Pouyouleix, France, was 1.5 m × 2 cm at 1 m in 2020 (B. Chassé pers. comm.). Another propagation of the des Barres plant grows at Arboretum Chocha, France where it was about 8 m tall in 2019 (pers. obs.).

A tree at Arboretum Trompenburg was grafted in about 1988 from a plant grown from seed from Shanghai Botanic Garden. It was 7 m × 18 cm in 2021 and produces good acorn crops every other year or so, from which seedlings have been raised. (G. Fortgens pers. comm.).

A further introduction was made from Hunan, China in 2004 by Allen Coombes (CMBS 860). Trees of this provenance are at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, England, 2.7 m × 3.7 cm at 0.5 m in 2021 (B. Clarke pers. comm.), RBG Kew, 3 m tall in 2016 (Tree Register 2021) and Wynkcoombe Arboretum, 4.74 m × 4.8 cm in 2021 (N. Smith pers.comm.). Of the Wynkcoombe plant, Nicholas Smith writes on their website ‘it has grown rapidly, has not suffered from any frosts and underside of the leaves are covered in just about the whitest felt of any Oak’. At Penrice Castle, Wales it was 4 m tall in 2021 (T. Methuen-Campbell pers. comm.) while at Chevithorne Barton it was about 2 m tall in 2021 (J. MacEwen pers.comm.) There are also two trees at High Beeches (S. Bray pers. comm.). A tree at Evenley Wood Garden, Northamptonshire, is an earlier introduction and was 8 m × 22 cm in 2014 (The Tree Register 2022).

The CMBS 860 collection is represented at Arboretum des Pouyouleix, France by two trees, the larger 3 m × 4.5 cm in 2020 (B. Chassé pers. comm.). At Arboretum de la Bergerette, France it was 2.4 m tall on three stems in 2021 (S. Haddock pers. comm.). It is also grown at Arboretum Wespelaar, Belgium and at Arboretum Iturraran, Spain.

A further introduction was made to Kew by an expedition to Sichuan (SICH 2025); planted in 1999, it measured 7 m × 15 cm in 2022 (The Tree Register 2022).

Three plants are grown at Starhill Forest Arboretum, Illinois, USA but are kept in a cool greenhouse over winter (G. Sternberg pers. comm. 2021). Five plants are recorded in the Asian Garden at the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden, Vancouver, Canada, that derive from Chinese seed received in 2015; in 2021 the tallest measured 1.55 cm (University of British Columbia 2022; D. Justice pers. comm.).

The epithet hypargyrea derives from Greek meaning silvery beneath, referring to the leaves. It was used originally by Karl Otto von Seemen in 1900 when describing this taxon as a variety of Q. glauca. The local name in China can be translated as ‘multi-veined evergreen oak’.