Plant Species of the Bright Angel Trail:
Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii
Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii
See Plant Guide to Bright Angel Trail for an introduction to this page.
Characteristics
Identification status: high confidence. There is no other oak species at the Grand Canyon that even remotely resembles this species. If you see an oak with deeply-lobed leaves, with rounded lobes that do not have a spiny tip, you're looking at Quercus gambelii.
Compare the pictures of the leaves on this page to those of Q. turbinella on this same trail. Also see that page for a discussion of hybrids between Q. gambelii and Q. turbinella.
Southern California botanists will be amazed at the simplicity of the Quercus key for the Grand Canyon.
Southern California botanists will note the superficial resemblance of this species to black oak, Quercus kelloggii. Both are deciduous, both have similarly-lobed and -colored leaves, and grow in similar habitats. However, the lobes of Q. kelloggii are pointed, not rounded, and this species is always a tree, whereas Q. gambelii can have both shrub and tree forms. More fundamentally, they are in different sections within the oak family; Q. kelloggii is a black oak, Section Lobatae; Q. gambelii is a white oak, Section Quercus.
From a SEINet search, there are 36 vouchers of this species from the Coconino County portion of the Grand Canyon, including a voucher from the uppermost mile of this trail. Note that there may be additional vouchers at other herbaria not available through SEINet.
First occurrence on Bright Angel Trail: mile 0.00, elevation 6845 feet (2086 m).
Number of plants along Trail: This is very common along the trail. At least 50 plants were found in at least 9 different locations in September 2007.
Pictures
From 5 September 2007, mile 0.00:
Leaves on the shrubby stems at the base of the specimen at the trailhead, along with hoary-aster, Machaeranthera canescens, in bloom:
Overhead view of the specimen at the trailhead as seen from the trail:
Closeup view of leaves from the specimen at the trailhead as seen from the trail:
References
See Resources for Grand Canyon Flora for further information on most of these references. Entries in the second column are either the name used in that source or a page reference. The name is linked to online pages when available. If a given reference does not contain this taxon, the entry is either left blank or contains a hyphen.
| Family | Fagaceae |
|---|---|
| Scientific Name | Quercus gambelii |
| 1987 Grand Canyon Flora Name | Quercus gambelii |
| 1987 Grand Canyon Flora page | 40 |
| SEINet Image Page | Quercus gambelii |
| USDA Plants | Quercus gambelii |
| Flora of North America | Quercus gambelii |
| Jepson Manual for California treatment | |
| Jepson Manual illustration page | |
| Kearney and Peebles Name | Quercus gambelii |
| Kearney and Peebles Page # | 219 |
| Vascular Plants of AZ name | Quercus gambelii |
| Vascular Plants of AZ volume: page | 27:205 |
| Huisinga et al 2006 name | Quercus gambelii |
| Huisinga et al 2006 page numbers | 66-67 |
| Epple Name | Quercus gambelii |
| Epple description page # | 44 |
| Epple pix # | 78 |
| McDougall 1964 name | Quercus gambelii |
| McDougall 1964 page # | 73 |
| Brian 2000 Name | |
| Phillips 1979 name | - |
| Phillips 1979 page # | - |
| Stockert 1967 name | - |
| Stockert 1967 page # | - |