262 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



variously contorted erect or pendant branches, and slender branchlets coated at first 

 with short silky canescent pubescence, ashy gray, light reddish brown, or pale orange- 

 brown and slightly pubescent in their first winter, becoming glabrous and lighter 

 colored during their second year. Winter-buds ovate, acute, usually about \' long, 

 with orange-brown pubescent scales scarious and frequently ciliate on the margins. 

 Bark |'-1^' thick and covered by small loosely appressed light gray scales slightly 

 tinged with orange or brown, becoming at the base of old trees frequently 5'-6' thick 

 and divided by longitudinal fissures into broad flat ridges, broken horizontally into 

 short plates. "Wood hard, fine-grained, brittle, light brown, with thin lighter colored 

 sapwood ; used only for fuel. 



Distribution. Valleys of western California between the Sierra Nevada and the 

 ocean from the upper Sacramento to the Tejon Pass; most abundant and forming 

 open groves in the central valleys of the state. 



27. Quercus Garryaua, Hook. White Oak. 



Leaves obovate to oblong, pointed at the apex, wedge-shaped or rounded at the 

 base, coarsely pinnatifid-lobed, with slightly thickened revolute margins, coated at 

 first with soft pale lustrous pubescence, at maturity thick and firm or subcoriaceous. 



f^/(,. 2JJ 



dark green and lustrous and glabrous above, light green or orange-brown and pubes- 

 cent or glabrate on the lower surface, 4'-6' long, 2'-5' broad, with stout yellow mid- 

 ribs, and conspicuous primary veins spreading at right angles, or gradually diverging 

 from the midrib and running to the points of the lobes, sometimes turning bright 

 scarlet in the autumn; their petioles stout, pubescent, ^'-1' long. Flowers: stami- 

 nate in hirsute aments; calyx glabrous, laciniately cut into ovate acute slightly ciliate 

 or linear-lanceolate much elongated segments; pistillate sessile and coated with pale 

 tomentum. Fruit sessile or short-stalked; acorn oval to slightly obovate and obtuse, 

 I'-l^' long and ^-1' broad, inclosed at the base in a shallow cup-shaped or slightly 

 turbinate cup puberulous and light brown on the inner surface, pubescent or tomen- 

 fose on the outer, and covered by ovate acute scales with pointed and often elon- 

 gated tips, thin, free, or sometimes thickened and more or less united toward the 

 base of the cup, decreasing from below upward. 



A tree, usually 60-70 or sometimes nearly 100 high, with a trunk 2-3 in 



