226 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



the autumn; aments stout-steramed, 3'-4' long; staminate flowers crowded, hoary- 

 tomentose in the bud, their bracts toinentose. Fruit solitary or often in pairs, on a 

 stout tomentose peduncle ^'-1' long; nut full and rounded at the base, gradually 

 narrowed and acute or rounded at the apex, scurfy-pubescent when fully grown, 

 becoming light yellow-brown, glabrous and lustrous at maturity, |-'-l' long, ^'-1' 

 broad, its cup sliallow, tomentose, with lustrous red-brown hairs on the inner surface, 

 and covered by long linear rigid spreading or recurved light brown scales coated 

 with stellate hairs, frequently tipped, especially while young, with dark red glands 

 and often tomentose near the base of the cup. 



A tree, usually 70-80 but sometimes nearly 100 high, with a trunk 3-6 in 

 diameter, stout branches ascending in tbe forest and forming a narrow spire-like 

 head, or in open positions spreading horizontally and forming a broad dense sym- 

 metrical round-topped crown, and branchlets coated at first with a thick fulvous 

 tomentiim of stellate hairs often persistent until the second or third year, becoming 

 dark reddish brown and frequently covered with a glaucous bloom ; or sometimes 

 reduced to a shrub, with slender stems only a few feet high (var. echinoides, Sarg.). 

 Winter-buds ovate, obtuse, \'-y long, often surrounded by the persistent stipules 

 of the upper leaves, with tomentose loosely imbricated scales, those of the outer 

 ranks linear-lanceolate, increasing in width toward the interior of the bud, those of 

 the inner ranks ovate or obovate and rounded at the apex. Bark f'-l^ thick, 

 deeply divided by narrow fissures into broad rounded ridges broken into nearly 

 square plates covered by closely appressed light red-brown scales. "Wood hard, 

 strong, close-grained, brittle, reddish brown, with thick darker brown sap wood; 

 largely used as fuel. The bark is exceedingly rich in tannin and is largely used for 

 tanning leather. 



. Distribution. Valley of the Umpqua River, Oregon, southward through the 

 coast ranges to the Santa Inez Mountains, California, and along the western slope of 

 the Sierra Nevada up to elevations of 4000 above the sea to Mariposa County; 

 very abundant in the humid coast region north of San Francisco Bay and of its 

 largest size in the Redwood forest of Napa and Mendocino counties; southward and 

 on the Sierras less abundant and of smaller size. 



5. QUERCUS, L. Oak. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent properties, stellate pubescence, scaly or dark and 

 furrowed bark, hard and close-grained or porous brittle wood, slender branchlets 

 marked by pale lenticels and more or less prominently 5-angled. Winter-buds clus- 

 tered at the ends of the branchlets, with numerous membranaceous chestnut-brown 

 slightly accrescent caducous scales closely imbricated in 5 ranks, in falling marking 

 the base of the branchlet with ring-like scars. Leaves 5-ranked, lobed, dentate or 

 entire, often variable on the same branch, membranaceous or coriaceous, the primary 

 veins prominent and extending to the margins or united within them and connected 

 by more or less reticulate veinlets, deciduous in the autumn or persistent until 

 spring or until their third or fourth year; their petioles in falling leaving slightly 

 elevated semiorbicular more or less obcordate leaf-scars broader than high, marked 

 by the ends of numerous scattered fibro- vascular bundles ; stipules obovate to lanceo- 

 late, scarious, caducous, or those of upper leaves occasionally persistent throtigh the 

 season. Flowers vernal with or after the unfolding of the leaves; staminate solitary, 

 in the axils of lanceolate acute caducous bracts, or without bracts, in graceful pen- 



