Nature Note #12 Huckleberry Oak

When wandering my regular haunts, it often feels like seeing the familiar faces of neighbors as I pass by the regular residents of these native landscapes.  Some are good friends; others I may not have had the pleasure of making a significant acquaintance with and pass by them not knowing the first thing about them.  When I notice this second category I  usually try to change that and learn something about them. When I leave the habitat zones of my home landscape I often find myself almost entirely amidst life falling into that second category, and thus have a lot of learning to do. 

Such was the case when I started my way up a short bit of the Tahoe Rim Trail and stumbled across the smallest oak species I have ever encountered, the delightfully diminutive huckleberry oak, Quercus Vacciniifolia.  Acorns from this shrubby oak are a food source for local wildlife, including the black bears that inhabit this little oak’s range from southern Oregon, through the Coast Ranges, Cascades, and High Sierra. 

Huckleberry oaks have thick waxy leaves and woody branches and stems similar to many live oak species.  Unlike most other oak  species that can conclusively be called “trees”, the Huckleberry Oak only gets to about 5’ tall and is firmly a shrub.  The waxy and flammable leaves can cause extra trouble as fire moves through the forest understory. 

Even still, the Huckleberry oak can be useful to help to provide protection from erosion.  For this reason it is often planted in restoration projects along the shores of Lake Tahoe where I happened to find it. 

1. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?subview=map&taxon_id=78810 

2. https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/plants/shrub/quevac/all.htm 

3. https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=40771