Quercus virginiana southern live oak

Trio of Quercus virginiana, campus’s oldest, northeast of Frost Amphitheater. Sairus Patel, 14 Oct 2018

Quercus virginiana branchlet, northeast of Frost Amphitheater. Note rounded tips and pale undersides of leaves. Sairus Patel, 14 Oct 2018

These are the grand live oaks of the South, their immense, spreading boughs forming vaulted canopies over lawns and roads and the long approaches to old plantations. On campus, however, they were long represented by only three trees. The leathery, unlobed leaves are glossy deep green above and pale beneath, with slightly rolled-under margins and rounded tips that may appear pointed on casual examination. The small acorns are borne on conspicuous stalks.

Those older trees are beside Frost Amphitheater’s northeast entrance, not far from Arrillaga Alumni Center, and were planted sometime after 1959. Three lush specimens grow in the lawn at Littlefield Center, and numerous others can be found north and south of the Cantor Center. One stands in an island in Ford Plaza in front of Arrillaga Center for Sports and Recreation, while eight stunted specimens line the sidewalk on Arguello Way nearby, east of Ford Center; these are what remain of a planting of 30 in that area.

A couple of dozen of the cultivar sold as Cathedral Oak (Q. virginiana ‘SDLN’) were planted in Palo Alto’s California Avenue business district in 2009, for example at 240 and 330 California Avenue. They have performed well. Additional trees were planted in new curb extensions in 2015.

Quercus fusiformis is closely related to Q. virginiana, and the two intergrade in parts of Texas. Several West Texas live oaks – hybrids of the two species – are interspersed with Q. gravesii along the path at the northeast corner of Levin Field, just south of the package lockers.