GAMBEL OAK

Beech Family

Quercus gambelii

Gambel Oak is a tree of distinctive leaves and variable growth. It occurs from shrub size to a large 50 foot tree with a 2½ foot diameter trunk. Trees 10 to 25 feet tall are most common at the South Rim. The Gambel oak grows most often in thickets of a dozen or more. These are usually clones that grew up from a single root system, often after a fire. Gambel oak bark is gray, fissured and hard. The trees in this photo are in fall colors: yellow, never red.

Gambel oak is Arizona's only oak with oakish leaves: 2 to 6 inches long and deeply lobed like an eastern oak. A deciduous tree, its leaves come out rather late in spring, often in May, and they turn yellow and drop off in October. So the growing season at the South Rim is only about five months.

Deer browse the leaves and one-inch acorns. Other mammals and also birds enjoy the relatively sweet acorns. Native peoples utilized this rich source of protein, eating acorns raw or ground into flour, often after soaking overnight. Indians also used the hard, flexible wood for implements and construction.

Each acorn woodpecker clan assiduously and vociferously guards its acorn granary tree (often a nearby conifer snag) against interloping clans.

While most South Rim Gambel Oaks are small, this winter photo shows that the tree can grow large here.