[2] It is a naturally occurring hybrid of holm oak (Quercus ilex) and pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), found where their ranges overlap, but was first described from cultivation.

A semi-evergreen tree of small to medium size with a rounded crown, it was originally raised at the Holloway Down Nursery of Spencer Turner, Leyton, Essex, UK, noted by the zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at Trianon, Versailles in 1783, as the chêne de turnère.

[3] (Turner had died in January 1776, and the nursery grounds, on extended lease, returned to the landowner.

)[4] An early specimen was planted at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1798; it was uprooted in the Great Storm of 1987 but resettled in the ground and then increased its healthy growth.

[5] Its 'Pseudoturneri' cultivar has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.