Chris Padilla's thread about oak varieties reminds me of a question I'd like to ask of people who don't live in California: "What does your live oak look like?"
"Live Oak" seems to be common name which gets applied to different trees. I'm wondering if the live oak we have here in California is similar to the trees called live oak in Texas or on the East Coast. Our California Live Oaks are evergreen, not deciduous. The leaves look much more like Holly than Oak. That it, the leaves don't have lobes, and most of them do have little spikes on the edges. The growth habit of the tree is generally pretty gnarly; 16-foot straight mill logs just don't happen. The lumber has the open pores of red oak; you can blow through a short section of it.
So, Southerners or East Coasters, does my live oak sound like yours?
Jamie