• East view from Crissy Field overlook with old Coast Guard station on left and city on right

    Presidio of San Francisco

    California

Coast Live Oak Riparian Forest

COAST LIVE OAK RIPARIAN FOREST
Will Elder, NPS
 

Live oak riparian forest is a stream or lake associated community dominated by dense stands of coast live oak. It is found above the willow riparian zone. The understory is usually more dense than that found under oak woodland, but at the one site where this community exists in the Presidio, along Lobos Creek, the understory is degraded by a dense cover of Cape ivy.

Typical Sites at the Presidio: Bordering Lobos Creek.

Common Native Plants

Common Name Scientific Name Family
Poison oak Toxicodendron diversilobum Anacardiaceae
Wild cucumber Marah fabaceus Cucurbitaceae
Coast live oak Quercus agrifolia Fagaceae
Bee plant/California figwort Scrophularia californica Scrophulariaceae

Did You Know?

Jonathan Letterman

Major Jonathan Letterman--after whom the hospital at the Presidio was renamed in 1911--was the medical director of the Army of the Potomac. A founding father of military medicine, Letterman organized forward first-aid stations, mobile field hospitals, and ambulance services during the Civil War.