Oregon Oak

Oregon oak, better known to many as Oregon white oak or Garry oak, is one of only four deciduous oaks native to the West Coast. It grows slowly, often adding less than a foot of height a year, and a single tree can live for roughly 500 years. Trees in the open spread into broad crowns over thick, furrowed bark, while on harsh, high sites east of the Cascades it may stay a shrub with many trunks.

Fire shaped this tree’s world. Thick bark lets mature trees ride out light ground fires, and young trees that burn usually sprout again from the roots. Frequent burning, much of it set by Native Americans, once kept oak savannas open. With fire held back, Douglas-fir has crowded in, and in the Willamette Valley less than 15 percent of the original oak woodland and savanna remains.

Oak country is rich wildlife habitat. The acorns ripen in a single season and are a rich, high-protein food. Acorn woodpeckers store them in granary trees, western gray squirrels bury them, and deer browse the foliage, while band-tailed pigeons, wild turkeys and cavity-nesting birds also depend on oak woodlands. In and around Mt. Hood National Forest, look for Oregon oak at low elevations on the drier east side, where it grows among ponderosa pine, rather than in the wet, high forest.