Trees or shrubs , deciduous, trees to 15(-20) m, with solitary trunks, shrubs to 0.1-3 m, multitrunked. Bark light gray or almost white, scaly. Twigs brown, red, or yellowish, 2-4 mm diam., densely puberulent with spreading hairs or glabrate. Buds brown or yellowish, ovoid or fusiform and apex acute, 2-12 mm, glandular-puberulent or densely pubescent. Leaves: petiole 4-10 mm. Leaf blade obovate, elliptic or subrotund, moderately to deeply lobed, 25-120(-140) × 15-85 mm, base rounded-attenuate or cuneate, rarely subcordate, often unequal, margins with sinuses usually reaching more than 1/2 distance to midrib, lobes oblong or spatulate, obtuse, rounded or blunt, larger lobes usually with 2-3 sublobes or teeth, veins often ending in retuse teeth, secondary veins yellowish, 4-7 on each side, the more distal veins often branching within distal lobes, apex broadly rounded; surfaces abaxially light green or waxy yellowish, often felty to touch, densely to sparsely covered with semi-erect or erect, simple and (2-)4-8-rayed, fasciculate hairs 0.1-1 mm, secondary veins raised, adaxially bright or dark green, glossy or somewhat scurfy because of sparse stellate hairs. Acorns 1-3, subsessile, rarely on peduncle to 10(-20) mm; cup saucer-shaped, cup-shaped, or hemispheric, 4-10 mm deep × 12-22 mm wide; scales yellowish or reddish brown, often long-acute near rim of cup, moderately or scarcely tuberculate, canescent or tomentulose; nut light brown, oblong to globose, (12-)25-30(-40) × (10-)14-20(-22) mm, apex blunt or rounded, glabrous or often persistently puberulent. Cotyledons distinct. 2 n = 24.

Quercus garryana (no varieties specified) was used medicinally by Native Americans to treat tuberculosis and as a drink and a rub for mothers before childbirth (D. E. Moerman 1986).