Flora-Fauna

Quercus cerris L.

(First published in Species Plantarum: 997; 1753)

• Life-form & habit: Large deciduous tree, up to 25–35 m tall, with a broad, irregular crown. Bark dark grey to blackish, deeply fissured with age. Young shoots often pubescent.
• Leaves: Alternate, petiolate; blades oblong to obovate, 60–120 × 25–60 mm, deeply pinnatifid with 6–12 lobes, each triangular and often bristle-tipped; upper surface dark green, glabrous; lower surface greyish-green, initially pubescent.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Monoecious. Male flowers in pendulous, yellow-green catkins; female flowers solitary or few in short spikes, axillary.
• Fruit: Acorn 20–30 mm, enclosed up to half its length in a densely bristly cupule with long, recurved scales. Matures in 18 months.
• Phenology: Flowers in April–May; acorns ripen by the second autumn.
• Habitat & ecology: Found in mixed deciduous forests, on hills and lower mountain slopes; tolerates calcareous soils and drier exposures, often forming dominant woodland stands.
• Lebanese localities: Recorded in montane oak woods of Mount Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon.
• Native range: Southeastern and central Europe to the Levant, including Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, East Aegean Islands, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Lebanon–Syria, NW Balkan Peninsula, Romania, Sicilia, Switzerland, Turkey, Turkey-in-Europe (POWO).
• Introduced range: Widely cultivated and naturalized in temperate regions including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, New York, New Zealand South, and Poland (POWO).