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Quercus gambelii

Shrub

HomeShrubQuercus gambelii

Dry foothills and lower mountain slopes, 1350 – 2800 metres.

Family: Fagaceae
Height: 4.5 m / 15 ft
Sun, Semi-shade
Medium and Heavy Soil
Dry to Moist

Plant Rating

Edible Uses: 3 of 5
Medicinal Uses: 2 of 5
Other Uses: 3 of 5

Native Habitat

Shin Oak, Gambel oak, Rocky Mountain White Oak Quercus gambelii native habitat is Dry foothills and lower mountain slopes, 1350 - 2800 metres.

Edible Uses

Seed - raw or cooked. A staple food for several native North American Indian tribes. A sweet taste. The seed is about 2cm long and wide, it can be dried, ground into a powder and used as a thickening in stews etc or mixed with cereals for making bread. If the seed contains bitter tannins, these can be leached out by thoroughly washing the seed in running water though many minerals will also be lost. Either the whole seed can be used or the seed can be dried and ground it into a powder. It can take several days or even weeks to properly leach whole seeds, one method was to wrap them in a cloth bag and place them in a stream. Leaching the powder is quicker. A simple taste test can tell when the tannin has been leached. The traditional method of preparing the seed was to bury it in boggy ground overwinter. The germinating seed was dug up in the spring when it would have lost most of its astringency. The roasted seed is a coffee substitute.

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