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Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the the July 26, 2009 Newsletter, describing a backpacking trip on the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail in Red Buttes Wilderness Area, Siskiyou County, California:
SADLER OAK
Already at our hike's trailhead plants turned up that I'd never seen. Most conspicuous was a shrubby, evergreen oak forming dense thickets about waist high around the parking area where we left the car. You can see a bush's five-inch long leaves and immature acorns above.
That's a Sadler Oak, QUERCUS SADLERIANA, an endemic shrub found only in the Klamath Mountains of extreme southwestern Oregon and extreme northwestern California. You might enjoy seeing a map showing its tiny distribution.
Sadler Oaks shun bright sunlight, preferring forest edges, and forming ground cover seldom over five or six feet high in open conifer forests. It belongs to the white oak group, so its acorns mature in only a year. Its closest near relative lives in Mexico.