Live oaks never drop all their leaves. Individual leaves comes
and go, but the tree always wears a crown of green.
This cache is named for the genus of the two types of oak you
will find here. It's under a low growing, still scrubby specimen of
Quercus agrifolia, or coast live oak, the most common oak
of the Coast Range.
The large tree just below it, with smooth edge leaves, is
instead Quercus chrysolepsis, the canyon live oak. The two
sometimes interbreed, so you may find trees with characteristics
that are intermediate between them.
Sadly, the Russian Ridge Preserve, like much of the Santa Cruz
Mountain area, is plagued by Sudden Oak Death (SOD), a disease
caused by the Phytophthora ramorum fungus which can kill
entire groves of oaks. These oaks are unaffected, but the next
grove west along the trail has several specimens that have
succumbed to SOD.