Valley Oak

Our featured plant in the What’s Happening in Our Watershed project for June is the Valley Oak. When the summer sun reaches its maximum duration and intensity, where better to sit and contemplate the refuge of nature than beneath the broad, outstretched arms of a Valley Oak (Quercus lobata)? Lay back and look up into the canopy of one of the largest oak species. Valley Oak is a keystone species; you are sharing shade with a grandly biodiverse community of native insects, birds, mammals, and other groups. Valley Oak roots tap into deep, fertile soils deposited and watered by millennia of springtime floods. All this yields not only summer shade, but in season the acorns that sustained native peoples.

The line drawing below was created by Mady Neufeld. You’re welcome to print out and color the image below. You can also download the file here. For additional information, including photographs and range maps, visit the California Native Plant Society or Calscape.