Tuesday, November 7, 2017

THE GARRY OAK TREES OF CAMAS PRAIRIE



A trip through the Willamette Valley was a real eye opener to massive oak trees.



"....An oak savanna is grassland characterized by a scattered distribution of open-growth oak trees and small groves of oaks 
By Lynda Boyer
Land surveys conducted by the General Land Office of the US Government in the 1850’s documented about 1 million acres of the Willamette Valley were prairie lands both upland and wetland and over 400,000 acres contained oak. 
Evidence suggests that the valley prairies may have become established during a time when the climate was warmer and drier than today (Hansen 
 At present, the climate of the Willamette Valley is sufficiently cool and moist to support woody vegetation on most sites 
Palynological studies indicate that the Willamette Valley has been dominated by oak savanna for more than 6,000 years. Since lighting fires are infrequent, this suggests that human-caused fires have maintained this sub-climax condition.... 

The Kalapuya Indians, the Willamette Valley’s native inhabitants, had substantial motivation to use fire in the landscape. The falls on the Willamette 
River at Oregon City made most of the river inaccessible to salmon. TheKalapuya relied on the native plants of the prairie and game to provide their economy. In order to eliminate woody vegetation and maintain the open structure that facilitated this diverse resource base, frequent, low-intensity fires were set...."


So...when I moved to the Glenwood Valley in 1970,  I paid little attention to the scrubby oaks growing on the breaks of the Klickitat River and the Goldendale Grade. I had great admiration for their tenacity to grow out of a rock, while twisting and turning themselves into a trunk with gnarly branches and still capable of producing a nut.  It was great firewood for holding a fire all night.  
In the 1980's the farms of Battle Ground began turning into one massive housing development and I mourned the loss of those huge Oak trees, but I was still somewhat oblivious to our oak trees.  
However, in the last few years, as I have become more gnarly and twisted myself with age, I have gained a fascination with the Garry Oak, the only oak native to Washington State. 
I had been pondering, what  it must have been like when the Native Americans set fire to Camas Prairie.  Then I pondered the thought that the Camas roots and Oak trees often seem to occupy the same habitat.  Not a "symbiotic relationship", but perhaps some type of relationship.  Remember....I come from the area of Camas, Washington where the Camas root and Oak trees once grew in abundance.  I know this Camas Prairie gets colder with frequent frosts, but is it possible big Garry Oak trees grew here at one time?

FROM:



"OREGON WHITE OAK  Also called GARRY OAK.   Oregon White Oak was named after Nicholas Garry, a deputy governor for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
This species grows slowly to 80-100 feet (25-30m). It may live 250-500 years.
Oregon White Oak grows on dry, rocky slopes and in open savannahs. Many native oak prairies, and their associated ecosystem, have disappeared and continue to decline due to urban development, fire suppression and overgrazing. There is evidence that native people in the Willamette Valley burned the Oregon White Oak savannahs nearly every year in the late summer or early fall to prevent the encroachment of faster growing conifers....."

Along the southern fringe of the Glenwood Valley are some tall, straight Oak trees.  Nothing like the Willamette Valley Oaks of course, but they are respectable and some are even a bit majestic.  
Then I began pondering,,,,, could I start an Oak Tree from the nut?
And then,..... I found out I am way behind on that idea.



Ted Alway has been doing this kind of work for a long time:



Ted says:
"....There is but one species of oak native to Washington state, Oregon white oak or Garry oak (Quercus garryana). It grows west of the Cascades from Vancouver Island to California, but occurs east of the mountains only in Yakima and Klickitat counties… except for a fairly small population found between Cle Elum and Ellensburg, separated by 60 miles from their closest “cousins”. I don’t know how this outlying population came to be there; perhaps Native Americans transported acorns north many centuries ago. This northernmost population of oaks may be the hardiest of the species, and may do well in other areas of Central Washington.
I’ve been propagating seedlings from these impressive trees for several years now. I collect acorns in the fall, trying to collect enough before the Steller’s jays and weevils get them all...".

And here is another guy, Tom Conway of Tall Clover Farm on Vashon Island.  Notice he addresses the same question I had been pondering about a relationship between our Garry Oak Trees and the Camas root.


"Last week in the greenhouse, I did notice my taproot-cramped Garry Oak seedlings were pining (so to speak) for a forever home in the ground. These wonderfully beautiful oaks, the only native oak to Washington, have a very limited range within the state. Surprisingly, the hand of man and woman created and encouraged the tree’s unique habitat and ecosystem. Indigenous people of the region would start brush fires to clear the understory around these oak groves. The annual practice promoted the growth of an important vegetative food source: camas tubers. As the practice declined, so did the range of the groves. Firs trees would quickly encroach and begin reforestation. Bye, bye Garry Oak? Not so fast…"
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FROM THE 




and then....to top it all of....I came across this guy...Ed Book, who saw the beauty of our oak trees long before I did.


"Ed Book presents an 8x10 portfolio of 72 photographic images of the mixed woodlands of Garry Oak and Ponderosa Pine found in and on the rims and surrounding plateaus of the Klickitat River Canyon, northeast of the Columbia River Gorge in Washington state.
This forest puts on an autumn color display unrivaled anywhere else in Washington. The small, leathery, multi and irregular lobed oak leaves turn saturated yellow, orange, red, and magenta hues when the first cold clear nights of autumn arrive.
Repeated extended visits in various weather conditions were required to record the woodlands and canyon at their optimum.
These images provide a glimpse of how the oak habit adapts to the varying habitat, from steep walled canyon to rolling parklands of forest mixed with meadow."



Well known
Columbia Gorge photographer, 
 PETER MARBACH has a photo of camas blooming on a high hill in the Carson area, over looking the Columbia River.  In the background you can see oak trees just beginning to leaf out.  





There is a lot of information and knowledge out there about our Majestic, Scrubby Oak Trees and I am just beginning to learn some of it.



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 I am continually learning new things about the Garry Oak and coming across new information.  
Below are links to further reading:

By David Shaw, OSU Extension Forest Health Specialist
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How to Cook Camas

June 16, 2012



and

November 01, 2012


Garry oaks can reach great proportions when they grow in deep soils that are free from competing Douglas Firs. Of our western oaks, they are second in size only to Valley Oaks and occasionally reach 90 feet in height. However, on dry rocky soils and in areas with little precipitation, they take on a low scrubby form. Most commonly they are between 50 to 60 feet tall and 6 to 24 inches in diameter 
from the BLOG

BY T. ABE LLOYD
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Grass-roots groups work to preserve native oak savannas

Oregon effort has 50 groups tending to oak habitats

November 06, 2017
By 

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....Kalapuya and other local Native American groups were some of the first people to shape Willamette Valley ecosystems to meet their needs. Prior to European settlement they used fire as a management tool to maintain gardens of camas (Camassia spp.), a native prairie plant whose starchy bulb was a food staple, and foster the growth of tarweed, grasshoppers, nut and berry plants, and bracken fern rhizomes (Agee 1993, Boyd 1999). They also set fires to herd deer for hunting. Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) is adapted to fire in ways that other species, such as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menzeissi), are not. Their thick bark protects the delicate cambium and dormant buds are located low on the root collar below the soil surface so they can sprout even after fire (Tveten and Fonda 1999). The fires the Kalapuya set thinned the understory of the oak woodlands and savannas, maintaining the stands’ open structure, enhancing tree vigor and seedling regeneration and increasing mast crops for consumption by both humans and game......

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Indian Use of Fire in Early Oregon

The Oregon Encyclopedia
April 07, 2016

"....As Douglas observed while traveling south of present-day Salem on September 30, 1826, "Most parts of the country burned; only on little patches in the valleys and on the flats near the low hills that verdure is to be seen. Some of the natives tell me it is done for the purpose of urging the deer to frequent certain parts, to feed, which they leave unburned and of course they are easily killed. Others say that it is done in order that they might better find wild honey and grasshoppers, which both serve as articles of winter food....."

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Isolated white oak trees are prime habitat for birds



September 12, 2008
Author Judy Scott 


CORVALLIS, Ore.—The magnificent white oak trees in the Willamette Valley that stand alone in farmers' fields may provide critical resources for birds living in and around agricultural fields......

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The Oregon Encyclopedia
Author Frank Lang
July 26, 2017

".....Oregon white oak, Quercus garryana, grows along the Pacific Coast from southern California north through the interior valleys of western Oregon and the Puget Sound Lowland to southwest British Columbia, where it is called Garry oak. It also grows in the Columbia River Gorge, in eastern Oregon, and along the Columbia River to the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains in Washington. 
David Douglas named the tree in honor of Nicholas Garry, secretary and later deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who was helpful to Douglas when he was in western North America in 1826 looking for native plants suitable for horticultural introduction in Great Britain. The specimen on which Douglas based the name is from a tree “on the plains near Fort Vancouver,” the Hudson's Bay Company post along the Columbia River....." 

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Large oak trees play a crucial role in the Willamette Valley ecosystem

April 10, 2009  by Joe Rojas-Burke
".....Generations of farmers have plowed carefully around the really big ones. Some have stood for more than 300 years, a time when native white oak trees and grasses covered half a million acres across the Willamette Valley......"

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By Cynthia Orlando

"........The Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) is an attractive deciduous hardwood tree native to Oregon, found as far north as British Columbia and as far south as southern California. These lovely hardwoods seem able to withstand both lengthy ooding and drought, and are most common on sites that are either too exposed or too dry for other tree species...... "

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In The Shade of the Old Oak Trees

August 24, 2010
A Greenway Trail is dedicated in the Camas/Washougal area where mighty White Oaks line the Washougal River  and the streets of Oak Park.

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