Quercus durata leather oak

Largely restricted to serpentine soils, including at Jasper Ridge, this tough shrubby oak sports evergreen leaves no more than inch long, usually armed with formidable spines. Their wavy margins are often rolled under so tightly – like a cinnamon stick – that the pale gray-green undersides are scarcely visible. Both surfaces are clothed in hair.

Small planted specimens are scattered in the Arboretum, most near Pine Avenue and the Angel of Grief, with at least one on the opposite side of Palm Drive from there; some are pruned into lollipop forms, likely mistaken for young coast live oaks. The swollen, tubercled scales of the acorn cups mark it as belonging to the white oak group, in contrast to the flat, overlapping scales of otherwise similar members of the red oak group such as coast live oak.