It was a chilly morning, and I had hoped maybe 20 people might
show. To my surprise, we got a whole lot more. Here in the South
Valley, people really love their oaks.
It was a chilly morning, and I had hoped maybe 20 people might show. To my surprise, we got a whole lot more. Here in the South Valley, people really love their oaks.
The official word was that 102 oak-lovers arrived two Saturdays ago, shovels in hand, at Morgan Hill’s San Pedro Percolation Ponds Trails for the tree-planting event. Santa Clara Valley Water District officials gave a safety lecture and a short training session on how to properly put the trees – live oaks and valley oaks, mainly – in the ground. We had so much help that in a half-hour, the work was all done.
You should have seen the grins of delight on people’s faces – particularly the kids – when they saw the young oaks, roots in ground, pointing skyward. Maybe the trees now look more like long twigs stuck in the dirt. But give ’em time. With water, sunshine and care, one day their branches will shade the trails of the popular nature getaway.
From volunteering at the tree-planting event, I developed a curiosity about oak trees and their significance to California. Irene Mort, an avid gardener who helped organize the San Pedro Ponds event, loaned me a copy of Oaks of California, a book published by the California Oak Foundation. It’s packed full of oak info and photographs revealing the splendor of the trees throughout the Golden State.
The book described 20 species of native oaks found in California. Fossils reveal even more thousands of years ago. These trees evolved into an integral part of the wildlife here, serving as food and home for bird, mammal, reptile and insect life.
Squirrels, of course, use the acorns nuts for nutrition. So do birds. Walk through an oak grove in late summer or fall, and you’ll hear the tap-tap-tapping of a woodpecker depositing the acorns in holes drilled in the bark. Even the mighty grizzly bears, when they roamed wild here, had a hankering for acorn. They used their powerful strength to shake the oak limbs, raining down the nuts to enjoy a feast.
When Native Americans discovered the bounty of California thousands of years ago, their entire society became entrenched with these trees. They saw oaks as gifts from the gods. The acorns became the staple of the California Indian diet. Women and children spent hours harvesting the nuts in the autumn and grinding them with rock pestle and mortars. Here in the South Valley at Chitactac-Adams County Park, you can still see the grinding holes in a rock cropping along the creek.
Once the tannic acid was washed out, the ground-up acorns were cooked into mush or used as the base for a nutritious vegetable soup. Acorns are full of fat, protein and fiber. They’re also a bountiful source of vitamins A and C as well as many essential amino acids.
The various California tribes revered the oaks so much, that among some the trees played an important role in religious ceremonies. Acorns became fertility symbols.
The oaks also played an important role in the European exploration and settlement of California. On Dec. 16, 1602, Sebastián VizcaÃno landed at what’s now Monterey. The Spanish explorer found a huge oak on the shore and had his men cut a large deep cross on the trunk. There, they celebrated mass. Until it fell in 1896, the tree was the west coast’s Plymouth Rock.
So plentiful were oaks here in our own Santa Clara Valley that Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza christened this region “El Llano de los Robles” – the Plain of the Oaks. When the British explorer George Vancouver wandered through the South Valley region in 1796, he felt amazed by the beauty and bounty of the trees. He wrote in his journal: “For about twenty miles it could only be compared to a park which had originally been closely planted with the true old English oak.”
Unfortunately, as more and more settlers came, more and more oaks fell. The Americans particularly got busy toppling oaks to turn Santa Clara Valley’s park-like plain into farms and orchards. Wood was used as lumber (although the redwoods in the mountains served better for that purpose). But most of it was burned as fuel for heating and cooking, and to power steamships. The tannic acid leached out of the bark also played an important role in the hide industry that made many Californios and Americans prosperous.
Today, as California’s population booms and oak groves give way to massive housing divisions, the future of the trees has come into debate. Conservation is critical. That’s why groups such as the California Oak Foundation and the California Native Plant Society want to achieve a balance between oak preservation and restoration with construction developments.
Perhaps because they’re so plentiful in coastal California, we take our oaks for granted. They seem everywhere here in the South Valley. They dot our foothills and ranchlands. They shade our neighborhoods and city parks. Morgan Hill even named one of its high schools “Live Oak” after one species of the tree
It’s important to save these beautiful trees. Throughout the South Valley, many have stood more than 100 or even 200 years old. The oak trees are a part of our region’s history. They’re also a part of our future. They add greatly to the natural beauty of this place we call home. They’re also serve as an integral part of our ecosystem. They’re a foundation supporting our environment.
Oaks belong to the genus “Quercus,” a Latin name derived from two Celtic words: quer for “fine,” and cuez for “tree.” The term seems appropriate because oaks are fine trees indeed. Just ask the 102 volunteers who helped plant many of them a couple of Saturdays ago.
And if you want to see the newly planted oaks, visit the San Pedro Percolation Ponds Trails in Morgan Hill, located at the corner of Hill Avenue and San Pedro Road. The trails remain open during daylight hours.
