Any ideas what this strange oak is? It seems to be semi-evergreen (photo taken today), and I am presuming it is some sort of Quercus ilex hybrid. There are 2 Q. ilex on the site, but they must be 400 yards away, the oaks in the area it was are found are Q. cerris, Q. petraea and/or Q. robur, along with various other oaks of uncertain heritage further away. However other than the Q. ilexs its the only oak keeping green leaves through winter. It was growing (until I dug it out and potted it this afternoon) on the edge of a bramble patch under a large beech tree, near about 10 beech saplings, and several Q. cerris saplings. I was thinking it might be a naturally occurring Quercus x turneri due to what appears to be its semi-evergreen nature, but the leaves are quite well eaten by something, and what is left of them I though looked more Q. cerris like than Q. robur.
Possibly just juvenility, even though it is the only one doing it--and other deciduous oak seedlings I have seen dropped their leaves. Other than that, maybe a hybrid, like you say, that mostly resembles the one parent.
My experience of deciduous oak seedlings is that instead of shedding their dead brown leaves in the autumn some keep them during the winter (Q. cerris, and Q. coccinea spring to mind immediately) but every other Q. cerris sapling on the place (and there are a lot, they spread like a weed) has had brown leaves for months, which are smaller with more pronounced lobes.
Possibly a back-cross with Q. × hispanica (Lucombe Oak, Q. cerris × Q. suber) then - any of them in the area?
There is a Q. x hispanica 'Lucombeana' and a 'Diversifolia' however both have only been planted inside the last year are about 2-3 feet, and the sapling in question predates them. :<
Guess it'll have to wait until it has some new leaves on! - can you post some new pics in summer? (if summer ever comes . . . )-:
Looks very turkey oak like to me, but I think it must have a bit of something else in it somewhere along the line, I am in Lucombe oak territory, although there are none in the immediate area I am aware of. It also seems to have particularly hard and sharp spines on its leaves.
