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  2. Plants of the Foothill College California Native Plant Garden
  3. Canyon Live Oak

Canyon Live Oak

Quercus chrysolepis

Family 2

Fagaceae

Description 3

Canyon live oak is an evergreen tree with a rounded, dense crown, growing from 6 to 20 m tall. It also may be a low shrub in dry, open habitats. The mature bark is gray and scaly. Leaves are oblong to elliptic, 2 to 3 cm long, flat, firm, with entire to toothed margins. Although dark green and shiny above, their lower surfaces are paler, grayish, and covered with a yellow “felt.” Like all oaks, it is monoecious and wind-pollinated. Acorn cups are composed of thick, tubercled scales. The one-seeded nuts are 2 to 6 cm long, oblong to elliptic, and mature in less than 2 years. On average, trees have high acorn production once every 2 to 3 years.
Minimum seed bearing age is 20 years.

Community 2

Yellow Pine Forest, Red Fir Forest, Lodgepole Forest, Foothill Woodland, Chaparral, Valley Grassland

Flowering 2

Mar-Jun

Ethnobotany 2

Native Americans used acorns as an important food staple and early European colonists found that its wood made a superior charcoal for use in a variety of industries, including baking and preparing mortar (USDA)

Garden Location 2

I

Associated species 2

"California Sister Adelpha bredowii californica (host) ASB
Propertius Duskywing Erynnis propertius (host) BMNA
Mournful Duskywing Erynnis tristis (host) BMNA

  • California Sister Adelpha bredowii (host) ASB
  • Propertius Dusky-Wing Erynnis propertius (host) ASB
  • Mournful Dusky-Wing Erynnis tristis (host) ASB
  • Gold-Hunter's Hairstreak Satyrium auretorum (host) ASB"

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) gillian360, all rights reserved, uploaded by gillian360
  2. (c) gillian360, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
  3. Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/1392332

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