Description: Evergreen tree with a great central trunk and crown varying from narrow and conical to broad and rounded; sometimes a shrub.

Height: 15-25m

Diameter: 0.3-0.8m

Leaves: evergreen; 6-13cm long, 2-6cm wide. Oblong, thick and leathery, with many straight, parallel, sunken side veins; with wavy-toothed border sometimes turning under; stout, hairy leafstalks. Shiny, light green and becoming hairless, or nearly so, above; with whitish or yellowish hairs, woolly beneath when young.

Bark: brown, thick, deeply furrowed into ridges and plates.

Twigs: stout, with dull yellow hairs.

Flowers: numerous, tiny, stalkless, whitish flowers in catkins 5-10cm long; with unpleasant odour; upright from base of leaf; in early spring, sometimes also in autumn; usually all male, sometimes also one or two tiny, greenish female flowers at base.

Acorns: 2-3cm long; egg-shaped; one or two on stout, long stalk; yellow-brown, with shallow, saucer-shaped cup covered by long, slender, spreading scales; maturing second year.

Habitat: Moist valleys and mountain slopes; in oak forests and sometimes in nearly pure stands.

Range: Pacific coast from SW Oregon south to S California and in Sierra Nevada to central California; to 1500m.

Tanoak is placed in a separate genus with more than a hundred species native to southeast Asia and Indomalaysia. While the acorns resemble those of true oaks, the flowers are like those of chinkapins and chestnuts. Tanoak bark was once the main commercial western source of tannin. Indians ground flour from the large acorns after removing the shells and washing the seeds in hot water to remove the bitter taste.

Information: Audubon (1980)

Source: Mallet Court Nurseries, by mail order, unseen.

Purchased: November 1993

Planted: Potted at first, as these trees were supplied far too small to plant out, bare-rooted and at a price which had led us to expect something a lot bigger and more robust. Growth was slow, and possibly they should have been moved on to larger pots, or coddled under glass rather than being outside. Whatever - they never really recovered from being supplied bare rooted so small, and both died.

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