Infected Oaks Found in Santa Clara County

Mysterious plague has killed thousands of trees

By Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer, 16 Feb 2001, San Francisco Chronicle

The fast-spreading contagion that is killing oak trees along the Northern California coast has been confirmed in Santa Clara County, bringing to seven the number of counties battling the mysterious plague.

The disease, known as sudden oak death, has killed tens of thousands of coast live oak, black oak and tan oak trees throughout a 190-mile range of coastline.

Although the pathogen was known to exist in Marin, Sonoma, Napa, Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, scientists did not confirm its existence in Santa Clara County until earlier this month. “It was isolated in three locations in the western part of the county close to the Santa Cruz border,” said Nicole Palkovsky, oak management plan coordinator for the University of California and spokeswoman for the California Oak Mortality Task Force. “It was a small infestation, all on tan oaks.”

The confirmation was not a surprise to experts, but the development is further proof of the ominous, steady creep of a disease that scientists are afraid may eventually render California’s prized oak trees virtually extinct. The pathogen causing the destruction was identified only last summer as a Phytophthora, a kind of brown algae that takes many different forms, one of which caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s.

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