The Fagaceae

The Fagaceae is the oak or hickory family. California has many oak species, and we call it the oak family here. Scrub oaks are common components of chaparral. Taller oak species are dominants of various types of woodlands throughout the state.

In the Fagaceae...

• Flowers are unisexual
• Staminate flowers are in catkins (usually)
• Pistillate flowers are solitary or in a few-flowered clump that is subtended by an involucre

 In oaks (the genus, Quercus) the fruit is a single nut, commonly called an acorn. Its subtending involcre is the acorn cap.

In the chinquapins (the genus, Chrysolepis), there may be up to 3 nuts in a cluster that is enclosed by spiny, bur-like involucre