Garry Oak (Oregon White Oak)
Quercus garryana
Learn about the Garry Oak tree, including when and why it was planted, how to identify it, and where to find it.
Tree Facts
Traits
- Broad, rounded growth habit
- Branching becomes twisted and picturesque with age
- Four- to six-inch-long, leathery leaves with rounded lobes
- Bark is ridged and rough
Native Range
- West coastline to the Cascade Mountains
Story of the Tree
The Garry oak is the only oak tree native to Washington state. The one planted on West Campus commemorates Scott White, who served in the Washington State House of Representatives from 2009 to 2011 and in the State Senate in 2011.
These trees provide food and shelter for native wildlife, such as the endangered Western Grey squirrel. Additionally, the size and shape of these mighty trees makes for excellent shade cover in forests and curated outdoor landscapes.
Garry oaks were a distinct element of culturally produced pre-contact landscapes around the lower Columbia River and the Salish Sea in what is now western Washington. Garry oaks benefited from the Coast Salish peoples' frequent brush- and garden-clearing fires, as they absorbed more nutrients from the newly fertilized soil.
Although acorns were a staple food for Native Americans in California and—to a lesser extent—in Oregon's Willamette Valley, acorn harvesting in Washington was restricted to prairies between Puget Sound and the Columbia River. Only a relatively small group of Sahaptin and Coast Salish speakers, including the Nisqually, Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Klickitat, could harvest acorns. In much of the Puget Sound and the wider Salish Sea, where most Coast Salish peoples managed or cultivated camas intensively, acorns were an occasional novelty or not consumed at all.
Garry oaks can live up to 500 years old. Garry oak trees and associated understory ecosystem plants have become rare, and in some locations are critically imperiled and at risk of extinction.
