Quercus agrifolia
- noun
- Specialized
- Landscapers often recommend Quercus agrifolia due to its drought tolerance and evergreen foliage.
Examples
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The Quercus agrifolia is commonly known as the coast live oak.
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The Quercus agrifolia provides essential habitat for many native animal species in California.
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Botanists studied the leaves of Quercus agrifolia to understand its adaptation to coastal conditions.
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Many parks in California feature the Quercus agrifolia.
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Botanists studied the leaves of Quercus agrifolia to understand its adaptation to coastal conditions.
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Landscapers often recommend Quercus agrifolia due to its drought tolerance and evergreen foliage.
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The Quercus agrifolia provides essential habitat for many native animal species in California.
Synonyms
1
8.2
An evergreen oak tree with small, thick, spiny dark green leaves that grows on the coast of California
1
8.3
A short bushy evergreen tree that grows along the west coast of North America with small thick spiny leaves
Surface Forms
Morphology
Quercus + agrifolia
This is a Latin scientific binomial rather than a lexical English phrase; the specific epithet 'agrifolia' is not an English word and lacks a dictionary definition here, so a B1 learner cannot derive the species meaning from the parts. Even if a learner knew 'Quercus' as 'oak', species names are technical and require specialist or Latin-root knowledge, making the overall name not transparently interpretable.
Etymology
Quercus agrifolia comes from Latin: Quercus means 'oak' and agrifolia likely means 'holly-like leaves'. The name fits because this coastal, evergreen oak has small, thick, sometimes spiny dark-green leaves, so the words describe what the tree looks like today.