Shrubs , ascending, to 2(-3)m. Twigs densely tomentose. Leaf blade usually flat, to 60mm, veins not deeply impressed. Fruits: cup scales usually strongly recurved.

Flowering summer (Jul-Aug). Open conifer forest, margins of woods, and dry slopes; 600-2200 m; Calif., Oreg.

Lithocarpus densiflorus var. echinoides is found in scattered locations in the Siskiyou region and the Sierra Nevada south to Mariposa County, California.