Both Quercus

Quercus agrifolia vs Quercus virginiana

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 3 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 3x by our model Same genus Quercus Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Quercus agrifolia, photographed by Jeremiah Degenhardt
fig. a Jeremiah Degenhardt, CC BY 4.0

Quercus agrifolia

coast live oak
Quercus virginiana, photographed by Sawyer Baran
fig. b Sawyer Baran, CC BY 4.0

Quercus virginiana

southern live oak

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Quercus virginiana Quercus agrifolia 3 of 19 (16%)

Measured on 38,299 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Fagaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Both Quercus. Congeners, which is why this is hard.
Flowering Peaks in March versus March. Timing does not separate them. (n = 1,245 and 82.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages