Mexican White Oak

Its native range runs through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, crossing into the United States only once, in a single wild stand north of the Rio Grande in Texas. Everywhere else it grows on purpose: gardeners value it for holding leathery, plain-edged leaves through most of a mild winter and for shrugging off heat that would stress most oaks. Houston's own specimen, in a Bellaire park, is the nearest thing to a native tree the site maps for the species, broader than it is tall at nearly 20 metres across. Cross the Atlantic and it turns rare: Barcelona's Ciutadella park holds the only one in Catalonia, leaning over the sand since about 1887, and Valencia's Botanic Garden keeps a second, 3.44 metres round. One species, and almost nobody outside its home range plants it.