Quercus lobata

Valley oak, roble, Roble

Family: Fagaceae · Type: tree · Native

Valley oak is a California native tree found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Coast Ranges, Sierra Nevada Foothills, Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi Mountains, Central Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, southern California Ranges, northwestern southern California, Channel Islands, western Transverse Ranges, and western San Gabriel Mountains in slopes, valleys, and savanna at elevations below 1,830 meters. Flowering from March to April, this tree produces delicate pale green flowers. Growing up to 35 meters tall with a deciduous habit and thin, scaly light gray bark, it develops a broad spreading canopy. Its large leaves are 5 to 12 centimeters long, obovate with deep lobes, dark green on top and pale green underneath, featuring 6 to 10 obtuse lobes with coarse teeth at the tips. The tree produces large acorns in a hemispheric cup 14 to 30 millimeters wide, with nuts 30 to 50 millimeters long that mature in a single year.

Habitat: Slopes, valleys, savanna

Bloom period: Mar-Apr

Elevation: < 1830 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaRF, SNF, s SNH, Teh, GV, SnFrB, SCoR, nw SCo, ChI (Santa Cruz, Santa Catalina islands), WTR, w SnGb.

California counties: Kern, Monterey, Tehama, Mendocino, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Butte, Napa, Sonoma, Ventura, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito, San Joaquin, Tulare, El Dorado, Solano, Alameda, Mariposa, Lake, Tuolumne, Orange, Siskiyou, Stanislaus, San Diego, Riverside, Amador, Colusa, Yolo, Fresno, Sutter, Merced, Nevada, Contra Costa, Marin, Shasta, Calaveras, Placer, Yuba, Kings, Trinity, Glenn, Madera

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.