ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. 229 



Seeing so great a variation at Monterey, I do not hesitate to refer all speci- 

 mens, seen at the other localities mentioned above, to this species at present. 



Ou the plain near Mendocino City, that species exhibited about the same 

 gradations, although not so strikingly as at Monterey. 



10. Torreya Californica, Torr. (California Nutmeg.) Paper Mill! Marin 

 County. Ukiah ! Mendocino City ! Forest Hill ! 



Generally dispersed, only at Ukiah I found quite a group of this species. 

 Wood valuable. 



11. Taxus brevifolia, Xutt. (California Yew-Tree.) Devil's Canon, near 

 Forest Hill ! A handsome tree, twenty to thirty feet high, with extremely 

 slender and drooping branches. Dispersed but plenty. 



Wood valuable. 



12. Quercus agrifolia, Nees. (Live Oak.) Oakland ! Banks of Sacramento 

 River! Clear Lake! Russian River Valley ! Anderson Valley ! Monterey! 



Foliage extremely variable. On river banks and in expositions close to the 

 coast, where it is almost daily enveloped in fogs, this species exhibits quite a 

 uniformity ; the figure of Quercus oxyadenia in Sitgreaves' Report represents 

 this form of it very well. In the valleys of the interior the shape of the leaves 

 of one and the same tree is very different. Some have entire margins, while 

 others have them pretty deeply dentated, often one side is eutire and the other 

 dentate. Some trees occur of which the young shoots have the leaves " coarsely 

 sinuate-toothed, or obliquely sinuate-toothed ; teeth very sharply acute with a 

 broad base, cuspidate-awned," and thus agree with Dr. Kellogg's Quercus 

 Morehus — while the older branches have much smaller and entire leaves. In 

 Anderson Valley I saw several trees whose entire foliage agrees admirably with 

 Dr. Kellogg's. Had I not seen that tree on the shore of Borax Lake exhibit- 

 ing both forms, I should be inclined to call it a good species. The cups of the 

 acorns of these trees have the scales long and loosely imbricated, and the acorn 

 is almost entirely immerged ; but this is also the case with those of some trees 

 that have a far different foliage. Thus far I have not been able to find good, 

 distinctive, reliable characters. There are transitions in all parts, even on the 

 same tree. As the tree has the habit of growing in groups, one might suppose 

 that trees of one group, at least, should show a uniformity in botanical charac- 

 ters ; this is not so : just the very extremes may be found in one and the same 

 group. This phenomenon I observed throughout the whole length of Ander- 

 son Valley, a distance of some eighteen miles. Ou dry gravelly hillsides in the 

 interior this tree presents still another form : Quercus Wislizeni, Englm. 



The acorns ripen annually and differ also essentially in shape and size. Soil, 

 climate, and exposition, offer in this case no satisfactory explanation for so great 

 a variation in one species. Should it not be attributed to intrinsic peculiar- 

 ities ? 



13. Quercus Garryana, Hook. (White Oak.) On dry easterly hillsides and 

 in valleys on a poor buff-colored clay. Santa Rosa Valley ! Clear Lake ! Sears- 

 ville ! Anderson Valley! San Jose Valley ! 



