Exploring Blue Oaks: Rush Creek Field Trip

Blue oaks at Rush Creek

by Wendy Jacobs

On June 11, seven members took a field trip to see the large Blue Oak (Quercus douglasii) grove at Rush Creek Park near Novato. The landscape was very beautiful, containing little but the gnarled oaks and a golden grass underneath. It almost looked like being on safari in Africa.

The Blue Oak is not common around Petaluma, but does grow in the wild here. It is extremely drought tolerant, a bit smaller than the oaks we are most familiar with, and has a silvery-blue trunk and blue-green, small, lobed leaves. The shade is light shade, not as heavy as the oak tree shade we are more used to. Also at Rush Creek, we saw one Oregon oak (Quercus garryana), and several that appear to be hybrids of the Oregon and Blue oaks. ReLeaf Petaluma hopes to collect good specimens of Blue Oak acorns this fall, for the raising of trees.

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