Tree of Merit, Becky Schwartz Reports:
"Becky Schwartz Reports" is a
journalistic take on the Tree of
Merit series where Becky celebrates
the diverse ecoregions of the
U.S. by collaborating with urban
foresters in these unique areas.
Compton oak (Quercus × comptoniae)
I grew up in Southern California but moved away
before I started my career as an urban forester. For
this column, I wanted to get to know more about
urban tree options for California; luckily, I got con-
nected with the dynamic Dave Muffly who runs his
own company,
Oaktopia. Dave consults on arboricul-
ture and oak diversity, and he collects acorns from
all over California, the Southwest, and beyond to
support diverse oak stock in the California nursery
trade. His Oaktopia website is a superb resource.
One of Dave's goals as an oak propagator is to collect
acorns to propagate and plant oak trees with the
potential for use in a more expansive ecoregion
than where they naturally grow. This is important
in the face of climate change, when trees need to
be tolerant of high and low temperature extremes
and fluctuations in precipitation. And in California,
they must be able to thrive in alkaline soils.
Dave Muffly has been planting trees
(especially oaks) in California for
more than 30 years. He is a Board
Certified Master Arborist whom
Steve Jobs hired to install radically
diverse plantings at Apple Park in
Cupertino, California, where Dave
spent seven years as Senior Arborist.
Collaborator: Dave Muffly (oaktopia.org) • Photos by Dave Muffly
38 CityTREES
We spoke about an oak hybrid that Dave says has great
potential for Northern and Central California, Compton
oak (Quercus × comptoniae). This naturally occurring
hybrid between an overcup oak (Quercus lyrata) and
a southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) is native to
the southeast U.S. It favors USDA Hardiness Zones 7
to 9. It can reach 70 to 100 feet (21 to 30.5 m) tall,
and its mature width falls somewhere between that
of its parents, overcup oak (35 to 50 feet/11 to 15 m)
and southern live oak (60 to 100 feet/18 to 30.5 m).
Is this oak deciduous? "Here's a funny thing about
Compton oak that's often tricky for people to
grasp," Dave says. "It's not one type of tree; it's a
series of closely related but distinctive tree types.
Q. lyrata is deciduous, but, even more than that,
it's an early deciduous species. And Q. virginiana
is somewhere between semi-evergreen and ever-
green. So, the offspring of the two can have a leaf
senescence timing anywhere between the two."
A pair of Compton oaks in Visalia, California, showing
variation in fall color and slight variation in form.
