About 300 species of oak-like evergreen trees. Leaves alternate, simple, leathery, entire (mostly) or dentate. Flowers unisexual, male flowers in erect, simple or branched spikes, female flowers at the base of the male spikes or in special catkins, 4-5-lobed calyx, petals absent. Fruit a hand shelled, acorn-like nut. Native to southeast Asia and Indonesia, 2 species in Japan, and one in western North America (i.e., L. densiflorus, Tanbark-oak). Note: Some authorities have moved Tanbark-oak into a new genus, Notholithocarpus ("false lithocarpus"), based on molecular and other lines of evidence. It is not related to the Asian tropical stone oaks, Lithocarpus, but rather is more closely related to the north temperate oaks, Quercus
Lithocarpus: from the Greek lithos, hard, and carpos, fruit, a reference to the hard-shelled fruit.