Sand Live Oak Traditional Cache

Sand Live Oak is the predominant tree in Florida's scrub ecosystem. Scrub oak is a common name for six species of small, shrubby oaks. No one is called Scrub Oak in FL, as I thought at first. Please BYOP and check the bottom of the page for cache info.

Sand Live Oak

Quercus geminata, commonly called sand live oak, is an evergreen oak tree native to the coastal regions of the subtropical southeastern United States, along the Atlantic Coast from southern Florida northward to southeastern Virginia and along the Gulf Coast westward to southern Mississippi, on seacoast dunes and on white sands in evergreen oak scrubs.

A small- to medium-sized tree, the sand live oak is scrubby and forms thickets. The bark is dark, thick, furrowed, and roughly ridged. The leaves are thick, leathery, and coarsely veined, with extremely revolute margins, giving them the appearance of inverted shallow bowls; their tops dark green, their bottoms dull gray and very tightly tomentose, and their petioles densely pubescent, they are simple and typically flat with bony-opaque margins, having a length of 0.75–4.5 inches (2–12 cm) and a width of 0.2–1.5 inches (0.5–4 cm). The male flowers are green hanging catkins.

The acorns are small, 0.5–1 inch (1–2.5 cm), oblong-ellipsoid or ovoid, and are commonly born in pairs on peduncles of varying lengths.

In coastal Florida’s evergreen oak scrub, the Sand Live Oak is a ubiquitous and abundant species; the threatened Florida scrub-jay is found only in Florida scub.Live oaks, having characteristics of the sand live oak and the southern live oak (Q. virginiana), grow further inland. It is believed that these specimens are hybrids of Q. geminata and Q. virginiana. While hybridization does occur between Q. geminata and Q. virginiana, the two species are genetically and morphologically distinct.The Cuban oak, Q. sagraeana, has been purported to be a hybrid between the sand live oak and Q. oleoides, but recent evidence suggests that the Cuban oak is a separate species without hybrid origin

Description

The sand live oak is superficially similar to the live oak (Quercus virginiana). Both are broad leaf (as opposed to needle leaf) evergreen oaks. The bark and buds are similar. The acorns are similar. But sand live oak leaf blades differ from those of live oak in having their edges conspicuously rolled down and inward, toward the midvein. (The leaves are revolute.) The leaves, especially the youngest ones, look like little upside-down boats. The leaf blades of live oak are typically flat, and not revolute. Also, the midvein and major lateral veins of the upper surface of sand live oak leaves are noticeably impressed; the veins on the upper surface of live oak leaves are scarcely or not at all impressed. The leaves of sand live oak overwinter and drop as the new leaves and flowers emerge in spring, usually two or three weeks later than live oak.

Another difference is that sand live oak takes on different forms in different environments: When sand live oak occurs on coastal sand dunes, above the herbaceous zone where sea oats (Uniola paniculata) can be found, it typically forms dense, impenetrable thickets with the crowns of the individual shrub-trees rounded and clipped smooth by wind blown sand and salt. Where it occurs in scrub, sand live oak is typically a shrub, rarely more than 10 ft (3 m) tall. In high pine (a.k.a. sandhills), sand live oak usually grows as a fairly large individual tree, or sometimes, in a clonal copse, with multiple stems. The specific epithet, geminata, Latin for twin, refers to the notion that the acorns occur in pairs. However, more often than not, they occur in clusters of three or more. The acorns of live oak are usually just one or two per peduncle. The largest known sand live oak, located in Gainesville, Florida, is 94 ft (28 m) tall and almost 5 ft (1.5 m) in diameter at breast height (dbh), but very few specimens exceed 30 ft (10 m) in height and 2 ft (60 cm) in dbh.

Location

Quercus geminata occurs on the Lower Coastal Plain from southeastern Virginia to south-central Florida and thence along the Gulf Coast to southern Mississippi. Sand live oak grows in areas with deep, infertile sands, such as coastal dunes, scrub and high pine (or sandhills), and individual trees frequently persist where these communities formerly occurred such as coastal residential communities, pastures, pine plantations and old fields.

The thick, leathery, elliptical-shaped dark green leaves of sand live oak have a fuzzy grey underside, which helps distinguish it from live oaks.  The sides of the leaves also roll under towards the mid-vein, whereas live oak leaves are flat.  Sand live oak (and live oak) trees produce separate male and female flowers.  The male flowers occur in catkins that hang loosely from the branch.  The very small female flowers have no petals, and emerge with new leaves right from the stem.  In the spring sand live oak produces flowers several weeks after live oak does.  This flowering time difference acts as a reproductive isolation barrier, retaining these two species as distinct even when they grow together. 

In general, sand live oak trees are far shorter than Q. virginiana trees. The largest known individual lives stands 95 feet (30 m) tall, but individuals exceeding 30 feet (10 meters) tall are rare.  Sand live oaks also differ from live oak in that they grow in various forms depending on the environment.  When growing on wind swept coastal sand dunes, sand live oaks grow in short, shrubby, impenetrable thickets with their crowns rounded by wind.  In scrublands, it grows as a shrub, no taller than 3 meters (10 feet) high.  It grows larger in upland sand hills and pine woodlands, as individual trees or as a copse of multiple trunks connected as one individual underground. 

A dominant part of the pine scrub and high pine habitats, sand live oak is adapted for the regular wildfires that sweep through these areas.  Most (perhaps 80%) of the living part of the sand live oak tree exists underground.  Once fire kills the portion of the plant above ground, the underground portion sends up shoots that regrow their vegetation.  It is a fast-growing tree.  

In the fall, sand live oak trees produce a large number of acorns, which often grow in pairs from the same stem.  The genus epithet for this species, geminatus, derives from the Latin word for twins (although acorns also commonly occur singly and in bunches of three).  The acorns are heavily prey upon as a plentiful food source of carbohydrates for many animal species including quail, jays, wood duck, sapsucker, wild turkey, black bear, raccoon, squirrel, and white-tailed deer.  Seed caching animals (e.g. squirrels and jays) may serve to disperse the acorns but it is estimated that most get eaten.  Sand live oak acorns are also prone to infestation by weevils (family Curculionidae).  

Only rarely do acorns germinate and establish a seedling tree, despite the large number of acorns produced every year.  Most sand live oak trees appear to develop as shoots from clones.  Interestingly, acorns colonized by weevils may germinate at a higher rate than non-infested acorns.  This is because during their development inside the acorn, weevils often do not damage the endosperm, and ultimately leave it viable to germinate.  Animals reject weevil-infested acorns, and more often damage the endosperm of sound acorns, which thus do not survive to germination.

A diversity of bird species nest in its thick vegetation.  In Florida scrublands, sand live oak is common and abundant and is an important part of the only known habitat of the endangered Florida scrub jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) in peninsular Florida.

The cache is a tied in, camoed, "micro" pill bottle, that you have to puch really hard to open and close. It holds the standard rolled log w. rubber band in a sealed plastic bag. As usual, please make sure you put it back as you found it or better, and don't forget to BYOP!