Japanese name: オウゴンガシワ Scientific name:Quercus aliena ‘Lutea’
[Overview]
A cultivar of Nara-gashiwa.
The spring buds are a beautiful golden color, and the leaves also turn yellow in autumn.
The bark is blackish gray-brown and splits deeply and irregularly.
Leaves are simple and alternate, obovate-oblong, 12–30 cm long.
The undersides of the leaves are at first densely covered with stellate hairs, but later only sparse hairs remain on the veins and the surface becomes grayish white.
The leaf margins have wavy serrations.
The leaf stalks are 1–3 cm long.
There are male and female flowers.
The male flowers form catkins densely covered with white hairs, and many hang down from the lower part of the new branches.
The female flowers are borne several together in the leaf axils of the upper part of the new branches.
The fruit is a nut (acorn) that ripens in autumn of the same year; the cupule (acorn cap) is bowl-shaped, and the involucral scales are arranged like overlapping roof tiles.
[Cultivation]
It prefers a sunny, airy, well-drained, slightly moist, fertile soil.
Apply organic fertilizer in winter and slow-release chemical fertilizer in autumn.
