Holm oak

Family Fagaceae. Native to the Mediterranean, Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor.

An evergreen tree up to 25 m tall, with a smooth dark-gray trunk and a dense, broad-spreading crown. Shoots grayish-woolly, leaves small, up to 8 cm, highly variable in shape, leathery, glossy, dark green, yellowish- or whitish-pubescent beneath. Acorns mature in the second year.

Grows quickly, fairly shade-tolerant, frost-hardy, can withstand temperatures down to -20°C without damage. Drought-resistant. Grows on dry rocky slopes and on any types of soils. Tolerates pruning well, long-lived. Suitable for group plantings, avenues and street plantings; in formal gardens it is used to create dense tall hedges and high walls, for which its small-leaved forms are suitable. In cultivation since 1819.

It has a number of ornamental forms differing in the color, shape and size of the leaf blade: narrow-leaved (f. angustifolia); small-leaved (f. microphylla); long-leaved (f. longifolia); Ford's (f. Fordii) - with leaves narrower and smaller than those of the typical form, with a narrower, pyramidal crown; entire-leaved (f. integrifolia) - with entire-margined, lanceolate leaves; curly (f. crispa) - with curly leaves; gold-variegated (f. aureo-variegata) - with yellow-variegated leaves; round-leaved (f. rotundifolia) - with rounded or ovate leaves.

based on materials from the website www.ultradrome.narod.ru