Quercus durata, Leather Oak

California Scrub Oak or Leather Oak is an oak endemic to California. This plant is classified as one of the shrub oaks due to its smaller size. It often used as an urban tree and medicinal plant. In the garden, this plant can tolerate garden soil as well as drought and clay-rich soils. However, it is best adapted to relatively dry, rocky, nutrient-poor soil. Most plants remain short, under 15 feet, and have small, densely organized holly-like leaves. It may look more like a bush than a tree.

Because leather oak is a species of white oak, its acorns mature in about 6 months, are hairless inside the acorn shell, and are sweet or slightly bitter tasting; the shell is mildly toxic. It flowers in the spring, typically April or May. Oaks are an extremely valuable habitat plant, supporting over 150 species of butterflies and moths. If you don’t have room in your garden for a big oak tree, try this species that occupies a smaller, lower footprint.

In the wild, Quercus durata usually grows in serpentine soils, often with manzanita, in the chaparral of the Coast Ranges from Klamath to San Luis Obispo. There are outlying populations in the Sierras and the San Gabriel Mountains.