Quercus pyrenaica Willd.
Quercus toza auct.
Eng.: Iberian oak (the most common name of Pyrenean oak is not very suitable as it does not live in the Pyrenees). Spa.: Roble melojo, rebollo. Fre.: Chêne tauzin. Tam.: Techt, test.
Deciduous tree, monoecious, reaching up to 25 m in height, irregular in appearance, with a ± straight trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter. Bark ashen or greyish-brown, fissured longitudinally. Branchlets densely tomentose. Leaves (6-20 × 4-12 cm), alternate, ovate or obovate, deeply lobulate, pinnatifid or pinnatipartite, slightly or not at all coriaceous, velvety-whitish, with stellate hairs on both sides when young —turning matt green—, glabrescent on the upper side and densely tomentose on the underside, with petiole tomentose to glabrescent (about 5-25 mm). Male flowers numerous in yellow catkins, pendant (3-10 cm). Female flowers grouped in short spikes, upright, with 2-8 flowers. Fruit (the acorn) an elongated-ovoid achene (1.5-4.5 × 1-2.5 cm), with chestnut-coloured nut. Cupule with imbricated scales, villous, lower scales ovate and applied, upper scales linear-triangular and ± free.
Flowering:
April to May.
Fruiting:
September to November.
Habitat:
On low and medium siliceous mountains (200-2,000 m), in subhumid to hyperhumid bioclimatic zones, on upper thermomediterranean to supramediterranean floors. It usually forms pure forests, but appears sometimes mixed with other trees of the same genus or, more rarely, with cedars.
Distribution:
Western Mediterranean region. In North Africa it is only known from the western Rif Mountains. It forms good forests around Bab Berred; it is rarer but also common in other Djebala mountains (mounts Buhachem, Sunna and Khezana).
Conservation status:
A common species and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level (Gorener et al., 2017). In North Africa it is a common species but highly localised.