Quercus coccifera - Kermes oak

Kermes oak (Quercus coccifera) is a small, spiny-leaved evergreen shrub oak common in Mediterranean maquis. Its acorns are edible once leached of their bitter tannins. It usually stays under 2 m tall, occasionally becoming a small tree of 4-6 m,¹ though the RHS lists 4-8 m tall and wide in cultivation.²

Inputs

• Hardiness zone 5³
• Hardiness zone 6³
• Hardiness zone 7³
• Hardiness zone 8³
• Hardiness zone 9³

Outputs

• Human food³

Type

• Shrub
• Evergreen
• Quercus spp. - Oaks

Functions

• Flammable⁴

Dimension	At maturity
Height (m)	under 2 (occasionally 4-6; 4-8 in cultivation)
Diameter (m)	4-8 in cultivation

Footnotes

1. Quercus coccifera | Guía Virtual de Especies Vegetales, Diputación de Cádiz ↩

2. Quercus coccifera | RHS Plant Finder ↩

3. Quercus coccifera | Plants for a Future ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

4. Guia de pirojardineria, Diputació de Girona / Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 2020, rated “desaconsellada” (discouraged) in its master species table; Liodakis, S. & Kakardakis, T., ISEIMA Proceedings, 2006, pp. 24-28, found it had the highest heat content of 7 WUI species tested ↩