The Strange Quest to Save North America’s Most Elusive Oak Tree
Quercus tardifolia
As a Querophile, this caught by eye. It has crossover themes to the Endangered Species Act, Ivory Bill Woodpeckers, etc.
I sent Steve some articles on rare NM oaks and he thought they were on a ranch of a friend which was a cool small world association.
Interesting. Now I understand why I have difficulty identifying certain individuals. Thank you.
Down the road in Belen.
Michael Martin Meléndrez
3cDeccembeft2po98r 24hga a05gl1tn 06:02i PrMd ·
This coming fall of 2022 we hope to hold the International Oak Society conference at Las Cruces New Mexico. 180 miles north of Las Cruces is Belen NM, where this Cork Oak is growing. We are thinking of doing a Pre-conference tour where I hope to show this tree. It survived an extreme cold event in February of 2011 of about -22 F without any damage.
This coming August/September we shall have the next IOS conference held in Las Cruces New Mexico. One of the tour sites will be these mountains, the Organ Mountains which is east of the city a few miles, climbing a mile into the sky. This mountain range has over 1100 taxa, with desert oaks such as Q. turbinella, pure forms of the Arizona White Oak – Q. arizonica and in the high elevations even have Douglas Fir, and Aspen. I spent my teenage years climbing all the highest peaks of this range and spent many nights camping in its wilderness.
Las Cruces Memories & Photos Public group · 17.3K members
Found it!
I came to post this, but you beat me to it.
Podcast with good detail. Aug 2022