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| ## California black oak {#california-black-oak .Title-Header}         |
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| *Quercus kelloggii* Newberry                                          |
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| Plant Symbol = QUKE                                                   |
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Contributed by: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & UC Davis
Arboretum

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# Uses

*Ethnobotanic*: California black oak provided a fountain of resources to
Native Americans of California and Oregon including food, medicine,
dyes, utensils, games, toys, and construction materials. Large
quantities of young, supple sprouts were utilized for myriad items. An
abundance of acorns were gathered and formed a staple food throughout
much of California\--eaten in the form of a soup, mush, bread, or
patties. Today, acorns are still gathered by people of many different
tribes in California and southern Oregon and relished as food. The tree
and its uses are important touchstones for maintaining tribal ethnicity.

*Wildlife*: It is well known that bears (*Ursus americanus*), ground
squirrels (*Spermophilus scrofa*), jays (*Cyanocitta stelleri*),
band-tailed pigeons (*Columba fasciata*), acorn woodpeckers (*Melanerpes
formicivorus*), pocket gophers (*Thomomys bottae*), deer mice
(*Peromyscus* spp.) and black-tailed deer (*Odocileus hemionus*), among
many other animals, find acorns a favorite food source. Studies have
shown that birds can harvest significant amounts of acorn from tree
canopies within a short duration and bears will also sometimes harvest
acorns before the crop has dropped.

*Building Materials*: California black oak is currently utilized for
high-grade lumber and pallets, industrial timbers, sawdust for mulching,
and fuel wood. Its hardness and finishing characteristics make it
suitable for industrial flooring and its grain characteristics make it
desirable for paneling and furniture.

# Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status
and wetland indicator values.

# Description

*General*: Oak Family (Fagaceae). California black oak is a deciduous,
hardwood tree with a broad rounded crown from 10-25 m. high. It is the
largest mountain oak in the West and surpasses all other California oaks
in volume, distribution, and altitudinal range. The trunk bark is dark
and covered with small plates. The bright green leaves are distinctly
six-lobed ending in one to four bristle-tipped teeth, and the leaves are
7 to 20 cm. long. The acorns are 2.5 to 3.5 cm. in length and mature in
the second year. The nut is deeply set in the cup and the cup is covered
with thin, flat and imbricate scales.

# Distribution

For current distribution, please consult the Plant Profile page for this
species on the PLANTS Web site. The tree ranges from Baja, California on
the south up into southwestern Oregon. Mountain ranges where it is found
include the San Bernardino, San Jacinto, Agua Tibia Mountains, and the
Tehachapi Mountains in southern California, the Santa Cruz and Santa
Lucia Mountains in central California, the Sierra Nevada, and the
Klamath and Cascade Mountains of northern California and southern
Oregon. It spans an elevation of 200 to 2400 m. and takes a shrubby form
at higher elevations. It can be found in northern oak woodlands, mixed
conifer forests and mixed evergreen forests.

# Establishment

If possible, gather acorns from many different trees locally, to
maintain genetic diversity of California black oak and to ensure that
the plants are adapted to the site. The seeds of most oaks are
short-lived and must be sown or refrigerated quickly, otherwise they
lose their ability to germinate. They are best gathered directly from
the tree or from the ground within a short time of their dropping,
usually within several days. To test their ripeness\--take an acorn
that\'s still in its cap and twist it lightly. If it pops out of the
cap, the acorn is ripe. Store the seeds without their caps in a grocery
sack until ready to plant. The seeds can be sown in autumn outdoors, or
if the seeds are started in pots in the greenhouse in the early spring,
they should be stratified for two months between 33 and 40 degrees in a
refrigerator.

Fill a gallon Ziploc™ bag about half full with acorns, and then add
about a cup of dry perlite and a little bit of vermiculite (3:1
mixture). Shake the bag up to distribute the perlite around the acorns,
label the bag, and place in the refrigerator. Check the bag weekly and
discard moldy acorns. Any acorns that have germinated need to be taken
out of the bag and sown. The acorns can be placed in the refrigerator in
October or November and taken out two to five months later. Then plant
the seeds on their side directly in long, deep pots (2 in. in diameter
by 10 inches long) with potting soil and a slow release fertilizer.
Water the tubes and place them in diffused light in the nursery or
outside, making sure to keep each tube suspended off the ground or bench
so the large air holes at the bottom of the tube are exposed. When the
tree roots hit the air, they\'ll stop growing. Water when the surface of
the soil is dry to the touch, but don\'t over-water.

Out-plant the seedlings the following winter in a sunny location, and
water the transplants to ensure sufficient moisture and eliminate air
pockets. Be careful to keep the soil from falling off the roots. Place
the seedlings in the ground such that the top of the soil from the
container is even with the ground line. Studies have shown that
California black oak seedlings planted in the fall or winter grow and
survive better than seedlings planted in the spring. Use a pick mattock
for planting, which has a pick on one surface and a triangular wedge on
the other surface. Protect the seedlings from weeds, drying winds,
grasshoppers, and mammals that might feed on the roots, leaves, or
trunks. Also water (deeply) the seedlings the first summer. A good
seedling protector is essential and can be a simple wire window screen
mesh and wooden stake. Bend the mesh into a cylinder that is about 6-8
inches in diameter and 3 feet tall. Attach the mesh cylinder onto the
wooden stake with staples or carpet tacks. Place the tube over the
seedling and pound the stake into the ground. Seedlings should be kept
free of vegetation for 2 to 3 feet surrounding the seedling.

*Direct seeding*: Pick acorns without insect exit holes or diseases.
Store acorns for one month in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Dig a hole with the trowel, shovel, or hoe and be sure to break up the
soil much deeper (one to two feet). Plant the acorns on their sides, one
to two inches deep in the fall of the year and backfill with loosened
soil to accommodate the growing of roots. Plant several acorns in each
hole and thin multiple seedlings down to a single most vigorous plant.
Water (deeply) the acorns the first summer. Weed several feet around
each seedling for several years. Protect the seedlings from animals
until well established.

# Management

Keep grasses and other plants that require a lot of moisture away from
the oaks. California black oak should not be irrigated except in years
of unusually low rainfall. If a drought year, supplemental watering can
take place in the spring to complement natural rainfall. Water the soil
from halfway between the trunk and the drip line to 10-15 feet beyond,
allowing water to penetrate the soil to a depth of 18 to 24 inches. It
may be necessary to water for 4 to 6 hours to get water to this depth.
Native plants that are drought tolerant and shade tolerant and require
no summer water can be planted under the oaks, such as California brome
(*Bromus carinatus*), deergrass (*Muhlenbergia rigens*), *Calochortus*
spp., and *Dichelostemma* spp. among others. Light pruning can be done
in the winter on mature oaks to remove weak, diseased, and dead branches
but never top oaks.

Once established, California black oak is quite fire-tolerant. Many
tribes in California set frequent light-surface fires in areas of
California black oak to ensure continual yields of high quality acorn.
Major reasons for burning included: 1) facilitate acorn collection; 2)
increase the quality and quantity of acorn production through decreasing
diseases and decreasing acorn pests; 3) stimulate the production of
straight shoots (epicormic) for the making of cultural items; 4)
decrease the likelihood of major conflagrations that would destroy the
oaks; 5) burning for mushrooms in the oak/ponderosa pine forests; and 6)
increase edible grasses and other seed bearing herbaceous plants. Fires
were typically set in the fall or early winter of the year, as families
were leaving the higher elevations to over-winter below the snow line.

# Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Available from most native plant nurseries within its range. Contact
your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture."

# References

Anderson, M.K. 1993. *The mountains smell like fire*. Fremontia. Journal
of the California Native Plant Society. Vol. 21:4(15-20).

Dagit, R. 1998. *Transplanting oak trees*. Growing Native 9(6):1-24.
Editor, L. Lacy. The Newsletter of the Growing Native Research
Institute.

Hagen, B.W. 1990. *Keeping native California oaks healthy*. Tree Notes
#7. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Hagen, B.W., B.D. Coate, & K. Oldham 1991. *Compatible plants under and
around oaks*.

Keator, G. 1998. *The life of an oak: an intimate portrait*. Heyday
Books and California Oak Foundation, Berkeley, California.

McDonald, P.M. 1990. *Silvics of North America*. Volume 2, Hardwoods.
Burns, R.M. and B.H. Honkala (tech. coords.) Agriculture Handbook 654.
USDA, Washington, D.C.

McDonald, P.M. & W.E. Sundahl 1967. *California black oak: a general
bibliography on an increasingly valuable species*. USDA, Forest Service
Research Note 134. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment
Station, Berkeley, California.

Pavlik, B., P.C. Muick, S. G. Johnson & M. Popper 1991. *Oaks of
California*. Cachuma Press, Los Olivos, California.

Roberts, T.A. & C.H. Smith 1982. *Growth and survival of black oak
seedlings under different germination, watering, and planting regimes*.
Tree Planters\' Notes pp. 10-12.

Schettler, S, & M.N. Smith 1980. *Nursery propagation of California
oaks*. IN: T.R. Plumb, ed. *Proceedings of the symposium on the ecology,
management, and utilization of California oaks*. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-44.
Berkeley, CA. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific
Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station; 368 p.

USDA, Forest Service 1974*. Seeds of woody plants in the United States*.
USDA Agricultural Handbook No. 450. U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C. 416 pp.

Young, B. 1998. *How to propagate an oak from an acorn*. Growing Native
9(6):1-24. Editor, L. Lacy. The Newsletter of the Growing Native
Research Institute.

# Prepared By & Species Coordinators

*M. Kat Anderson*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center

c/o Plant Sciences Department, University of California, Davis,
California

*Warren Roberts*

UC Davis Arboretum, University of California, Davis, California

Edited: 05dec00 jsp; 29may03 ahv; 060809 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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