38. Golden Cup Oak

Also called the Canyon Live oak

Specimen Size: 54ft tall, 41.25in in diameter.

Location: Just south of the music building near the corner closest to Skagit Lane.

Historical Background: Oaks have been essential to many Native American cultures. Many parts of the tree are used for food, to craft tools, baskets, medicine, and as firewood. For the Wukchumni, a Yokuts tribe of California residing on the Tule River, canyon live oak was used as firewood for cooking and keeping warm. 

Non-native

Native Range: California

Identifying Features: Sometimes confused as a Water Oak (Quercus nigra), this specimen lacks the tell tale three-lobed leaf shape of that tree, its leaves lacking triple lobes on the tip and instead exhibiting the long elliptical shape of the Canyon live oak. As a live oak, this tree is an evergreen (also unlike the water oak which is deciduous in cooler regions of its range). Leaves are a light green when new but turn dark and shiny on top with age and sometimes exhibiting yellowish hairs. The bottoms of each leaf are almost gray and nearly hairless. The tree has a short large trunk which gives rise to numerous large spreading branches that lead to a large canopy when space permits, as well as a rounded dense crown. Trunk diameter can reach greater than 3’ (0.9m). As an oak this species bears acorns, on this species variable in shape but generally with a shallow turban like cup of scales covered in yellowish hairs.

Identifying Features In Depth:

1. Form: This evergreen oak forms a large rounded crown when conditions permit, but in very dry conditions may be found growing to a variety of forms including in a shrubby manner. It has a large short trunk that gives way to large branches that spread and hold up the dense foliage at a height of 20-100’ (6-30m). Diameter of the trunk can run 3’ (0.9m) or greater in good conditions.

2. Leaves: Elliptical to oblong, abruptly pointed at the tip, rounded or blunt at the base. Sometimes the slightly folded in margins have spiny sharp teeth, in other cases they are smooth. In general they are thick and leathery. They are a shiny green above and grayish color below, with yellow hairs on the top and almost hairless beneath. Usually they lack any kinds of lobes but they can have teeth running the full length of the edge in some cDue to an immense array of phenotypic variation, in native habitat a clear indicator of this species is usually its elevation relative to other live oaks, however outside of its native range the leaf variation can lead to confusion.

3. Bark: Light to dark grey, nearly smooth when young but becoming quite rough and scaly with age.

4. Reproductive Bodies: This tree produces acorns (although they don’t seem to appear much here at the UW specimen), which are ¾-2” (2-5cm) long and variable in size and shape, egg shaped, and a dark brown. They are wrapped at the stem end in a shallow cup of thick scales covered in yellowish hairs, giving the cups a yellowish look that gave rise to the Goldcup oak name.