Trees, sometimes shrubs , subevergreen, trees to 25 m, shrubs often forming large clonal stands. Bark dark brown or black, scaly. Twigs light gray, 1.5-3 mm diam., tomentulose, tomentulum often persistent in age. Buds reddish or dark brown, subglobose or ovate, 1.5-3 mm; scale margins glabrous or puberulent. Leaves: petiole 2-8(-12) mm. Leaf blade oblong-elliptic to narrowly ovate or lanceolate, sometimes obovate, ± planar, (10-)35-90(-150) × (15-)20-40(-85) mm, base rounded to truncate or cordate, rarely cuneate, margins minutely revolute or flat, entire or irregularly 1-3 toothed on each side, teeth mucronate (rarely spinose in suckers or juveniles), secondary veins obscure, 8-10 on each side, apex obtuse-rounded or acute; surfaces abaxially whitish or glaucous, densely covered with minute, appressed, fused-stellate hairs, light green and glabrate in shade leaves, adaxially dark or light green, glossy, glabrous or with minute, scattered, stellate hairs. Acorns 1-3, on peduncle 3-30 mm; cup funnel-shaped, hemispheric, or deeply goblet-shaped, 8-15 mm deep × 6-12(-15) mm wide, base often constricted, scales whitish or grayish, thickened basally, keeled, acute-attenuate, tomentulose, tips reddish, glabrous or puberulent; nut dark brown, often with light brown longitudinal stripes, subfusiform and acute to narrowly barrel-shaped, rarely distally rounded, (17-)20-30(-33) × 8-15 mm, glabrous. Cotyledons connate.
Hills, grasslands, scrublands, open woodlands, oak-juniper woodland, and margins of thorn scrub, often on limestone or deep calcareous loams, sometimes on granular sand or gravel; at elevations up to 1,200 metres.
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