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Quercus agrifolia

Common name:	Encina	Family:	Fagaceae
Author:	Né e	Botanical references:	11, 71, 200
Synonyms:
Known Hazards:	None known
Range:	South-western N. America - California.
Habitat:	Forming open groves of great extent in valleys and on not too dry slopes in woods below 1000 metres, it is also found on coastal sand dunes[71, 82].
Edibility Rating (1-5):	3	Medicinal Rating (1-5):	2

Other Common Names:	From various places around the Web, may not be correct. See below.
	California Live Oak [P], Coast Live Oak [FEIS,DEN2,L], Coastal Live Oak [B],
Systematics:	From a USDA Plants Database
	Order: Fagales. Beech family

Physical Characteristics

An evergreen tree growing to 15m by 8m at a slow rate. It is hardy to zone 8. It is in leaf all year, in flower from April to May, and the seeds ripen in October. The flowers are monoecious (individual flowers are either male or female, but both sexes can be found on the same plant) and are pollinated by Wind. We rate it 3/5 for edibility and 2/5 for medicinal use.

The plant prefers medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and can grow in heavy clay soil. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires moist soil. The plant can tolerates strong winds but not maritime exposure.

Habitats and Possible Locations

Woodland, Canopy.

Edible Uses

Seed.

Seed - cooked[2, 63, 84, 92, 95]. Used as a staple food by several native North American Indian tribes[257]. It can be dried, ground into a powder and used as a thickening in stews etc or mixed with cereals for making bread. The seed, which is up to 4cm long and 2cm wide[82, 229], contains bitter tannins - these can be leached out by thoroughly washing the seed in running water though many minerals will also be lost. Either the whole seed can be used or the seed can be dried and ground it into a powder. It can take several days or even weeks to properly leach whole seeds, one method was to wrap them in a cloth bag and place them in a stream. Leaching the powder is quicker. A simple taste test can tell when the tannin has been leached. The traditional method of preparing the seed was to bury it in boggy ground overwinter. The germinating seed was dug up in the spring when it would have lost most of its astringency.
The roasted seed is a coffee substitute.

Medicinal Uses

Disclaimer

Astringent Skin.

Any galls produced on the tree are strongly astringent and can be used in the treatment of haemorrhages, chronic diarrhoea, dysentery etc[4].
A decoction of the chipped bark has been used as a wash on skin sores[257].

Other Uses

Buttons Fuel Repellent Tannin Wood.

A mulch of the leaves repels slugs, grubs etc, though fresh leaves should not be used as these can inhibit plant growth.
Oak galls are excrescences that are sometimes produced in great numbers on the tree and are caused by the activity of the larvae of different insects. The insects live inside these galls, obtaining their nutrient therein. When the insect pupates and leaves, the gall can be used as a rich source of tannin, that can also be used as a dyestuff[4].
The seed cups are used as buttons[95].
Wood - coarse grained, hard, very heavy, very brittle. It is not exploited commercially as a wood, though it is valued as a fuel[82, 229, 257].

Cultivation details

Prefers a good deep fertile loam which can be on the stiff side[1, 11]. Plants are lime tolerant[188]. Young plants tolerate reasonable levels of side shade[200]. Tolerates moderate exposure, surviving well but being somewhat stunted[200].
Trees are hardy in Britain if they are not too exposed[1, 11], though another report says that they are wind-resistant[49]. Trees grow well in S.W. England[49, 59].
Intolerant of root disturbance, trees should be planted in their permanent positions whilst young[11].
A slow-growing but long-lived tree in the wild[229]. Plants only fruit occasionally in Britain[11], though they fruited very heavily at Kew in the hot summer of 1989[K]. The tree flowers on new growth produced in spring, the seed ripening in its first year[200, 229].
Hybridizes freely with other members of the genus[200].
This species is notably resistant to honey fungus[88, 200].

Propagation

Seed - it quickly loses viability if it is allowed to dry out. It can be stored moist and cool overwinter but is best sown as soon as it is ripe in an outdoor seed bed, though it must be protected from mice, squirrels etc. Small quantities of seed can be sown in deep pots in a cold frame. Plants produce a deep taproot and need to be planted out into their permanent positions as soon as possible, in fact seed sown in situ will produce the best trees[11]. Trees should not be left in a nursery bed for more than 2 growing seasons without being moved or they will transplant very badly.

Suppliers

For more details of plant suppliers please see our Suppliers Page which lists many more places to look.

Web References

Details of Medicinal Uses, Habitats, etc. in M. Grieve A Modern Herbal (1931) [4]
[L] Scientific and Common Names (some photos) from Lepidoptera and some other life forms
[B] Data (Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
[G] Data (Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
[C] Taxon data. from the CalFlora database.
Images from the CalPhoto database.
[P] Data. (uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.
[HP] Links, Photos, Suppliers from Hortiplex Plant Database
[DEN] Data _ Photos (Good Identification info) from the Virginia Tech's Dendrology Deptarments' Tree Fact Sheets.
[FEIS] Data (Uses, Ecology, Fire Effects) from the USDA Forestry Service Fire Effects Information System.

References for the family Fagaceae.

[CHINA] Data Very detailed botanical/identification info. from the Flora of China.

See the PFAF Links Pages for other sources.

Also try Photos and info from the The Plants Database which has 14,000 images.

References

[K] Ken Fern
Notes from observations, tasting etc at Plants For A Future and on field trips.

[1] F. Chittendon. RHS Dictionary of Plants plus Supplement. 1956 Oxford University Press 1951
Comprehensive listing of species and how to grow them. Somewhat outdated, it has been replaces in 1992 by a new dictionary (see [200]).

[2] Hedrick. U. P. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications 1972 ISBN 0-486-20459-6
Lots of entries, quite a lot of information in most entries and references.

[4] Grieve. A Modern Herbal. Penguin 1984 ISBN 0-14-046-440-9
Not so modern (1930's?) but lots of information, mainly temperate plants.

[11] Bean. W. Trees and Shrubs Hardy in Great Britain. Vol 1 - 4 and Supplement. Murray 1981
A classic with a wealth of information on the plants, but poor on pictures.

[49] Arnold-Forster. Shrubs for the Milder Counties.
Trees and shrubs that grow well in &ndndndnd and other mild areas of Britain. Fairly good, a standard reference book.

[59] Thurston. Trees and Shrubs in &ndndndnd.
Trees and shrubs that succeed in &ndndndnd based on the authors own observations. Good but rather dated.

[63] Howes. F. N. Nuts. Faber 1948
Rather old but still a masterpiece. Has sections on tropical and temperate plants with edible nuts plus a section on nut plants in Britain. Very readable.

[71] Munz. A California Flora. University of California Press 1959
An excellent flora but no pictures. Not for the casual reader.

[82] Sargent. C. S. Manual of the Trees of N. America. Dover Publications Inc. New York. 1965 ISBN 0-486-20278-X
Two volumes, a comprehensive listing of N. American trees though a bit out of date now. Good details on habitats, some details on plant uses. Not really for the casual reader.

[84] Coyle. J. and Roberts. N. C. A Field Guide to the Common and Interesting Plants of Baja California. Natural History Publishing Co. 1975
A very readable pocket flora with good illustrations, it gives quite a few plant uses.

[88] RHS. The Garden. Volume 112. Royal Horticultural Society 1987
Snippets of information from the magazine of the RHS. In particular, there are articles on plants that are resistant to honey fungus, oriental vegetables, Cimicifuga spp, Passiflora species and Cucurbits.

[92] Balls. E. K. Early Uses of Californian Plants. University of California Press 1975 ISBN 0-520-00072-2
A nice readable book.

[95] Saunders. C. F. Edible and Useful Wild Plants of the United States and Canada. Dover Publications 1976 ISBN 0-486-23310-3
Useful wild plants of America. A pocket guide.

[188] Brickell. C. The RHS Gardener's Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd. 1990 ISBN 0-86318-386-7
Excellent range of photographs, some cultivation details but very little information on plant uses.

[200] Huxley. A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. MacMillan Press 1992 ISBN 0-333-47494-5
Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.

[229] Elias. T. The Complete Trees of N. America. Field Guide and Natural History. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. 1980 ISBN 0442238622
A very good concise guide. Gives habitats, good descriptions, maps showing distribution and a few of the uses. It also includes the many shrubs that occasionally reach tree proportions.

[257] Moerman. D. Native American Ethnobotany Timber Press. Oregon. 1998 ISBN 0-88192-453-9
Very comprehensive but terse guide to the native uses of plants. Excellent bibliography, fully referenced to each plant, giving a pathway to further information. Not for the casual reader.

Readers Comments

making flour from acorns

John Rutherford (johnr@dynamite.com.au) Mon Jan 24 10:49:48 2000

I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction in regard to processing acorns for food. your list mentions a number of preferred trees (american indians mainly) and i have tried the following: Q. palustris (pin oak), Q. lobata (valley oak), Q. macrocarpa (burr oak) and Q. robur (english oak).

Pin Oak (Q. palustris) was a waste of time because of the difficulty in shelling small acorns. the acorns also have the brown skin covering the kernal which apparantly adds a bitter taste if not removed.

Both the valley and burr oaks were quite successful. both trees supplied large acorns and both were free of the offending brown skin. The english oak was also worth the effort although I gather that some trees have sweet acorns and others produce acorns with a fair quantity of tannin.

Method: the shelled acorns were ground in a kitchen blender with enough water to help the blender go round. the slush was then put in a large metal dish and stirred thoroughly, then allowed to settle for 12 hours. the brown tannic water was poured off into another metal dish and more clear water was added to the slush and stirred. This was repeated about 4 times before the water remained relatively clean (pale light brown or fawn). this was strained through a tea towel and the resulting acorn meal was placed in a dish and allowed to dry out.

The resulting "flour" was used to make fairly basic scones (egg, salt, butter and "flour" mixed together) and made very pleasant eating. the processed acorns make a rather sweet tasting flour and if someone else did all the work i could make it my staple diet.

Disadvantages include: shelling the acorns. leaching the mush/slush for 2 or three days and getting so little acorn meal out of a lot of acorns.

Questions:

a. does tannin accumulate in the body? assuming that even the best leaching will leave some tannic acid - will a constant diet eventually damage the kidneys? (or is it the liver?).

b. does the tannic acid remove itself if the acorn is kept for a year? or if it is buried and sprouted? or if it is roasted? - will roasting in some way destroy the tannin?

c. is the flour a good substitute for cereal flours for those allergic to grains (celiac? allergy)?

d. does anyone know a good way of shelling acorns?

e. are there any commercial suppliers of acorn flour?

f. when the comment in the pfaf list says of an acorn "can be eaten out of hand", does this mean that it has a sweet taste and that you don't need strong jaws?

I was interested to see that the initial water poured off (see para 5) when allowed to settle precipitated a reasonable amount of whitish sediment which I assume to be a variety of starch. I tasted a little bit of it (it was brittle) and it had a sweet taste and melted in the mouth. I rang the local university in the hope of getting it analysed but was told that it would cost me an arm and a leg for their trouble - therefore a further question:

Question g. can anyone tell me if acorns produce a known type of starch - is this starch nutritious - if not starch what is?

Would you be able to advise me in regard to a book on the preparation of acorns or a study of the nutritional value (and the dangers) of them. have you any contacts with someone who may be an expert in this regard?

grateful if you could help in some way.

Cross references: Plants: Quercus macrocarpa. Genera: Quercus.

making flour from acorns

Unknown Fri Dec 1 22:52:15 2000

Read j Russell smiths book Tree crops a permenant agriculture

Cross references: Plants: Quercus macrocarpa. Genera: Quercus.

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Plant information taken from the Plants For A Future - Species Database. Copyright (c) 1997-2003.
WEB search engine by Rich Morris - Home Page- Contact Info
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