Giant angiosperms, coast live oaks are magnificent flowering trees. Angiosperms are what botanists call flowering plants. Although it’s hard to see the coast live oak flowers, they are there. In the spring, look for long green fuzzy strands followed by the fruit, better know as acorns. Oaks are monoecious which means flowers are either male or female, but both sexes are found on the same plant.
In spring, look for the staminate (male) flowers, those fuzzy strands previously mentioned. The pistillate (female) flowers are produced on small oak twigs and are very tiny and difficult to see. Pollination is aided by the movement of wind.
Coast live oaks are evergreen with tough outer, gray-green leaves which reduce water loss and shade the thinner inner leaves. They have many adaptations for the hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. These coast live oaks make their homes in coastal and Southern California regions.
At one time, Native Americans in Southern California used coast live oak acorns in their diet. They ground the acorns, flushed them in water (to reduce the tannic acid) and made a soup. Amazingly, oaks can produce 500 to 1,000 pounds of acorns every two to three years.
Not only humans, but a host of animals feed and help disperse acorns for future generations of oak trees. Oak tree communities support worms, bats, squirrels and large birds of prey, just to name a few.
Descanso has five oaks that are between 300 to 400 years old. Most oaks are younger and sprouted after a great fire in 1878. Today, we have more that 1,200 coast live oak living at Descanso Gardens.
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