Oakwoodland Biozone

Oak Woodland Biozone
First posted February 1, 2004 Last updated November 15, 2011

You may have taken a walk along the road above camp and noticed that the area is very different from the majority of Caz. There are fewer redwoods and they are smaller and farther apart, and the canopy is not defined by redwoods.

The most common tree is the tanbark oak, a broad-leafed tree about 20 feet tall. Mixed in are some Douglas fir, but they tend to be small. There are also many other plants growing below the branches of the oaks. So many that you can't even walk through the forest. This is the Oak Woodland Biozone. The classical Oak Woodlands are typically covered with blue, black, valley, coast live, or interior live oaks. However, our Oak Wooland has many similar characteristics with the classical Oak Woodland and is very different from our redwood forest. (See footnote)

This biological area is much more diverse than the redwood forest, because the trees do not filter out all the sunlight, as the redwoods do. There is a well-developed understory of ferns, poison oak, flowers, and shrubs. This plant diversity also promote a greater animal diversity, as they have more to eat here. The tanbark oak (not technically an oak, as it is not in the Quercus family) produces a nut (not technically an acorn, either, but only the scientists can tell the difference) that is eaten by deer, squirrels, turkeys, wild pigs, many insects, and other animals.

This is the area you are most likely to find an alligator lizard down in the leaf litter looking for insects and spiders.

Note
I had a very hard time coming up with a name for this biozone. Classically, the redwood forest biozone is divided into three forms (see Redwood Forest), and then further subdivided into plant communities. The region that I am referring to here is a plant community, which is a classification smaller than a biozone. According to the book, Coast Redwood: A Natural and Cultural History, which I most highly recommend, less than 15% of the redwood forest plant communities have been fully described. I have selected the name for this zone based on its own special characteristics, as explained above. It does not fit the alternative names, such as Redwood/ Mixed Evergreen Forest (higher elevation, large amounts of Douglas-fir), or Redwood/Douglas-fir Forest (slopes adjacent to Redwood Forest is accurate but our area has relatively little Douglas-fir in the upper stories of the canopy). I feel that this name best describes the forest above the access road.