University of California Fublications in Agricultural Sciences [\'ol. 2 



STUDY OF A NEW FORM OF JUGLAXS CALIFOBNICA 



WATSON 



I. History and Description 



In the autumn of 1900 D. C. Disher, of Garden Grove, Cali- 

 fornia, according to his own account, gathered about two thous- 

 and nuts from a certain California black walnut tree that grew 

 near Yorba, in Santa Ana Cafion, but which has since been 

 destroyed. These nuts were planted in the spring of 1901 in 

 order to raise seedlings upon which to graft the English walnut 

 for orchard planting. Among the seedlings about twenty 

 appeared from the first to be distinct from the rest, which 

 resembled the parent tree. Of these twenty only two trees remain 

 where they were first transplanted from seed-bed to nursery 

 row, the others having been given away or destroyed. Of these 

 two only one produces both male and female flowers and bears 

 nuts ; the other always produces staminate catkins in abundance 

 but no pistillate flowers. For this reason the first mentioned 

 individual has already been described^ as "the original fertile 

 tree," but it would have been more exact to have referred to it 

 as Disher 's fertile tree, inasmuch as some of the other original 

 specimens above mentioned have been located and are known to 

 bear nuts also. The writer has seen seven of these distributed 

 trees, and material from an eighth ; in leaf and bark characters as 

 well as in general appearance they resemble Disher 's trees. Three 

 of these are growing at the experimental garden of N. B. Pierce 

 in Santa Ana, three are located in the town of Garden Grove, 

 one is on the Leffingwell Ranch in East Whittier, and one is at 

 the United States Plant Introduction Gardens in Chico, Cali- 

 fornia. One of Pierce's trees is shown in plate 13, figure 16. 



The discoverer of these trees wished to preserve them bec^.use 

 thev are so strikinglv different in their leaf characters and in 

 general habit from ordinary California black walnut. They pos- 

 sess no special economic value, being less robust than other wal- 

 nuts and more restricted in their range of adaptability to adverse 



1 Babcock, E. h., in .lepson, Hie Silva of California, Mem. Univ. Calif. 

 II (1910), pp. .50-54. 



