| National Champion
| Coast Live Oak Quercus agrifolia Beech Family — Oak Genus Julian, California Circumference = 338 inches (21.2 feet)
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The Coast Live Oak is an attractive evergreen tree ranging from northern California south to Baja California in Mexico. It is common on lower mountan slopes, valleys of coastal mountains and on some nearby islands. It often forms large, open, pure stands. In its northern range, it seldom grows over 3000 foor elevations, but grows up to 5,500 feet in its southern range.
Coast Live Oak often hybridizes with the interior live oak, and resulting offspring are difficult to identify due to intermediate characteristics. The thick evergreen leaves resemble holly leaves.
This slow-growing, long-lived tree flowers in early spring, and its long-pointed acorns mature bytheend of the first growing season. its acorns are of limited food value to wildlife.
The reddish-brown wood is heavy, hard, brittle, and not used commercially except for firewood. Coast live oak is frequently planted in parks and gardens because of its shape and attractive dark green leaves. It is sometimes used as a street tree.
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Natural selection gets help
IdentificationSize: small to medium tree, 30 to 60 feet tall with broad, spreading crown; trunk short, soon branching, 1 to 4.5 feet diameter
Range: coastal areas, northern California south to Baja California
Habitat:
Leaves: alternate, falling gradually in late winter and early spring, .8 to 4 inches long, .5 to 3 inches wide, usually very broad, often near the base or middle, pointed at the tip, margin entire or coarsely toothed, almost leathery texture, dark green and smooth above when mature, hairy when young, paler and smooth to thickly hairy underneath, usually with tufts of hair in the main vein junctions
Leafstalks: stout, .5 to 1 inch long, smooth or hairy
Flowers: male and female in slender, hanging, hairy,reddish catkins, 3 to 4 inches long, female in few-flowered clusters at junctions of current year leaves
Fruit: acorns, maturing in 1 season on current years branchlets, solitary or in 2s and 3s, .8 to 1.6 inch long, .2 to .8 inch thick, elongated into narrow cone, gradually narrowing to pointed tip, cup top-shaped, enclosing lower 1/4 to 1/3 of the ut, cup scales thin, papery, overlapping, light brown
Bark: thin, becoming vey thick (2.8 inches) with age, smooth, light gray-brown when young, rough, furrowed and dark brown to almost black with age
Twigs: slender, hairy at first, becoming smooth at two years, light brown turning to dark gray to reddish-brown
Branches: stout, wide spreading
Buds: .2 to .3 inch long, rounded, broadest near base, tapering to a pointed tip, covered with overlapping, light reddish-brown scale
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