The Tehachapi Mountains are well-known for our oak trees, which are found throughout the range and are the most numerous type of tree. Among the different species are Valley, Blue, Black, Canyon and Interior Live Oaks. These assorted oak trees are iconic and cherished by area residents, but there is another type of oak that is routinely overlooked: the shrub oaks.

http://www.tehachapinews.com/lifestyle/pen-in-hand-shrub-oaks-an-overlooked-but-vital-part/article_7e9f7816-d6d9-11e7-8168-73e77a424902.html

Rejuvenated by two straight wet winters, the insidious pathogen that has killed more than 3 million trees in Central and Northern California in the past two decades reached a record level of infection this year, including major gains in Sonoma County.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/7640033-181/sudden-oak-death-rampant-in?artslide=0

Tree hugging is an honored tradition in the bucolic mountain town of Ojai, which sits in the middle of an ancient oak forest that has survived wildfires, earthquakes and floods.

Over the years, residents have built homes, shops and parks around its trees, and written poetic odes to their arboreal spirits.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-southern-california-wildfires-live-flames-and-santa-ana-winds-batter-ojai-s-1512575716-htmlstory.html

An oak woodland is considered a grouping of trees whose canopy is at least 10 percent oak.

The proposed mitigation ordinance is under consideration by the county Planning Commission, including an upcoming workshop planned at 9 a.m. Thursday in the Board of Supervisors' Room, 25 County Center Drive in Oroville.

http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20171212/butte-county-considering-oak-woodland-ordinance

For the seventh year in a row, Napa “citizen scientists” participated with the UC Berkeley Forest Pathology and Mycology Lab in an ongoing effort to track Sudden Oak Death (SOD), the exotic disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of oaks and tanoaks in California.

The Napa SOD Blitz was held on May 6 and the results came out in October.

The disease is caused by Phytophthora ramorum, a microscopic organism that spreads during periods of relatively warm, rainy weather in late spring in northern California, according to the lab’s website.

http://napavalleyregister.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/columnists/bill-pramuk/sudden-oak-death-blitz-results-are-in/article_c559568d-cf0d-5f48-9820-cf5cda4d927a.html

While the definition and criteria can vary from place to place, in general a "woodland" is an area with lots of trees, but they have what is called an "open canopy," meaning that the limbs and branches from one tree may sometimes touch the canopy of a neighboring tree, but they seldom overlap, and sunlight reaches the ground in most places.

http://www.tehachapinews.com/lifestyle/pen-in-hand-oak-woodlands-what-the-term-means-and/article_fafef1be-ec48-11e7-b3ef-bfa2f542020d.html

The most common cause of failure of trunks, large branches and roots of trees is decay from wood rot. More than a thousand different species of fungi can cause wood deterioration and decay that destroy the plant’s internal structural components – cellulose and lignin – potentially rendering them unable to support their own weight when stressed by heavy winds or rains.

http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/living/home-garden/garden-detective/article191668834.html