Quercus Chrysolepis Canyon Live Oak

Quercus Chrysolepis Canyon Live Oak is a shade tree that prefers full sun and thrives in clay, loam, sand or shallow rocky soils that are acidic. The tree displays 1 to 4 inches long, and 0.5 to 1.5 inches wide evergreen leaves with a dark green, thick, shiny, and leathery appearance. The foliage is alternate, simple, elliptical to oblong, unlobed, and flat with smooth or spinose margins. The lower surface of the leaves is bluish-white or gray with stellate, glandular hairs, and a golden wooly appearance. In April and May, the tree bears cream or tan, gold-yellow, or green-colored male and female flowers. The male flowers are slender, wooly catkins, and the female flowers appear short and spiky. The tree is ideal for use as a habitat and food source for a variety of wildlife, with its acorns being a food source for steller jays, woodpeckers, wild turkeys, squirrels, bears, and mule deer. The tree is also a host plant for butterflies including the Western Tiger Swallowtail. Canyon Live Oak bears chestnut brown, ellipsoid acorns that measure 0.5 to 2 inches in length and 0.5 to 0.75 inches wide with a thick, shallow, and scaly, golden wooly cap at the base and are harvested in October. The growth of this tree is slow but constant, and it may live for 300 years.