Pen In Hand: Valley Oaks: Spreading giants of the Tehachapi landscape
Pen In Hand: Valley Oaks: Spreading giants of the Tehachapi landscape
By: Jon Hammond, Tehachapi News Columnist
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments A huge crowd of Tehachapi people turned out last week at the West Park Activity Center for the memorial gathering in honor of Lars Oberg. There were so many longtime Tehachapi families represented (in some cases three generations of the same family) that it felt like a Tehachapi High School class reunion of the past 50 years of THS graduates. It was truly an epic event to honor a fine man and his family.
Many of the questions that I’m asked about this area involve Tehachapi’s beautiful and hardy native oak species. There are five species of tree oaks growing locally: blue, valley, black, canyon and interior live oaks. I’ve been describing each of them and this week my focus is on the largest of them all: valley oaks.
The valley oaks (Quercus lobata) are the giants of the genus. These are the large trees with pale, deeply-furrowed bark whose spreading canopies offer welcome shade during the hot California summers.
There are four main characteristics to look for when identifying oaks: bark, leaves, acorns and location. Note each of these, and correctly identifying our native oaks is as easy distinguishing a golden retriever from a springer spaniel.
Valley oak bark, as I mentioned, tends to be light in color and have deep crevasses. The paleness of the bark, especially on old specimens, gave rise to the common name “white oak” which is used by many oldtimers. The deep divisions between the bark plates, which tend to become more pronounced with age, are typical of valley oaks. This thick, knobby bark offers the trees protection from frequent wildfires.
The next identifying feature to consider is the leaves. Valley oaks have pronounced, obvious indentations in the leaf profile known as lobes. This distinctive lobed outline led botanists to use the species name lobata. As evidenced by the examples on this page, valley oak leaves can display a wide variety of sizes and shapes, but they always have the rounded lobing that is indicative of this species.
Valley oaks are considered to be winter-deciduous and they usually lose their leaves in December and January, not in autumn like the eastern hardwood forest trees. They may shed their leaves early in times of extreme drought, so they are also classed as “drought-deciduous.”
Valley oak leaves don’t always get much color to them, sometimes they change quickly from green to a dull color resembling a paper grocery bag or an old manila envelope. But when we have a gradual autumn without a hard killing frost, like this year, the valley oaks may wear a beautiful cloak of bright yellow leaves as the green chlorophyll slowly drains out of them.
The next feature to consider in identifying oaks is their seeds, which are known as acorns. Valley oaks tend to have long, pointed acorns that resemble elongated bullets or pointed lipstick dispensers.
On some trees they are fatter and more rounded, but check out the acorn cup or cap that holds the acorn on the tree — valley oak acorn cups are knobby and bumpy, and the acorns tend to protrude a long way out of the cup. Lobata cups are like small beanie hats, not deep extending ski caps like black oaks possess. Valley oak acorns mature in one year, and trees tend to produce large crops only every other year.
Location is the fourth attribute to consider, and as their name suggests, valley oaks tend to grow in valleys and wide canyons, often near creeks, where there is rich soil and available water. This is why so many of California’s original valley oaks have disappeared, in the Tehachapi Valley and elsewhere: because these magnificent oaks preferred the same fertile soil and sunny areas coveted by early settlers and farmers.
There is much more to write about these statuesque giants that are so indicative of the California landscape, and I will continue to cover different aspects of them even as I describe our other oaks. Valley oaks are unique to California and may live to be 400, 600 or even 1,000 years old, and it is worth learning more about these majestic trees.
Have a good week.
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