Quercus cornelius-mulleri Nixon & Steele 

Muller oak
Muller's oak, Muller's scrub oak


USDA QUCO7


Latin name / after ecologist Cornelius Herman Muller


CA MX




text is from turbinella

Leaf: Alternate, evergreen, simple, nearly round to obovate, 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches long, margins entire or with spine-tipped teeth (holly-like), leathery and stiff, dull gray-green with some fuzz above and woolly-white on the lower surface.
Flower: Species is monoecious; males in drooping 1 inch long catkins, yellow-green; females very small spikes in leaf axils, appearing in the spring.
Fruit: Narrowly oblong acorn, to 1 1/4 inch long; shallow, warty cap covers 1/4 to 1/3 of nut; ripens in 1 season in early fall or even late summer.
Twig: Slender, reddish brown with tan fuzz especially when young; buds clustered, globose. 
Bark: Light gray and finely scaly.
Form: A large clump-forming dense shrub or very small tree to 10 feet tall.



Site: Found in southern California chaparral and in the western foothills of the Mojave Desert.
Thumbnail: A dense, clump forming shrubby oak of the southwest U.S. desert with holly-like, gray-green leaves (1 inch long) that are fuzzy white below; narrow oblong acorns (1 inch) with shallow warty caps; bark is scaly, light gray.
Tidbits:  Identification of shrubby leather-leaved California chaparral oaks is difficult.  This species was once considered a variety of Quercus dumosa, and not separated until 1981.

Compare to turbinella, durata, berberidifolia, wislizeni
629 1093 710 556

Shrub live oak (Q. turbinella) is very similar but the leaves are not as woolly on the leaf undersides. 
Leather oak (Q. durata) has cupped leaves with yellow hairs on the lower surface.
Scrub oak (Q. berberidifolia) leaves have very little hair.
Interior live oak (Q. wislizeni) leaves have very little hair.

Status code 1

2 0 3 1 1 2




alternate
acorn
yellow
broadleaf
NULL
simple
lobes unlobed
entire spiney toothed
ovate1 elliptical obovate orbicular
0
thick
straight pubescense 
NULL
narrow broad
5
scaly short tall many
unarmed
NULL
NULL
shrub
dry arid