Description: Oaks are an important element of the California landscape, and as group, they are easily recognized. Eighteen species and five additional varieties are known to occur in Southern California. However, telling them apart is not always easy. Many oaks are similar in appearance and, especially the white oaks, hydridize promiscuously. The goal of the class is to teach participants to recognize key characters, how to separate our Southern Californian species, recognize hybrid forms, and learn something about the systematics and the ecology of southern California oak species through a combination of a visual presentation, examining fresh material, and a field trip in coastal and montane San Diego County. The workshop will also briefly discuss the status of these species and one additional Mexican species northwestern Baja California. This workshop will take place over two days. The first day will be in a classroom for the lab portion. The second day will be conducted outside through a tour of various oak species populations throughout San Diego County.
Instructor: Fred Roberts, author of Illustrated Guide to the Oaks of the Southern Californian Floristic Province (1995) and co-author Wildflowers of Orange County and the Santa Ana Mtns. regions (2013) has been working with native plants since high school. He was the assistant curator of the Herbarium at the Museum of Systematic Biology at U.C. Irvine for nine years, worked as a botanist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service primarily adding species to the endangered species list, and is currently an independent botanical consultant, author, and artist. His specialties include the flora of Orange County, lilies and their relatives, rare plants of southern California, and of course oaks. He has spent over thirty years looking at oak leaves by eye-ball, hand lens, or dissecting scope.