EARLY SCIENTIFIC E.\PEDITIONS TO CALIFORNIA. 131 



Gardens at Madrid, but this was doubtless merely communicated to 

 that author by Nee. 



Further evidence may be gathered from Nee's own botanical 

 writings. In the Anales de Ciencias Naturales, tomo ii, n. 9, we 

 find descriptions of several new species of American oaks, of which 

 Nee is the author, including two from California, viz., the Valley 

 Oak, Quercus lobata, and the Live or Field Oak, Q. agrifolia. 

 This paper was republished in the Annals of Botany ^ of Kouig 

 and Sims, the Spanish of the article being translated into English, 

 whence the following transcripts of the descriptions of the species 

 just named: — 



" 8. Quercus agrifolia. 



"Quercus foliis, lato-ovatis, subcordatis, dentato-spinosis, glabris: 

 fructibus axillaribus, sessilibus. 



'An Ilex folia agrifolii americana, forte agria, vel aquifolia glandi- 

 fera. Plunkenet, tab. 196, fig. 3. 



"I can not give the height of this tree, of which I have only seen 

 branches collected at Monterey and Nootka by the marine ofiicer 

 Don Joseph Robredo, and Don Manuel Esquerra, paymaster of the 

 corvette Atrevida. The bark of the branches is ash-colored and 

 smooth. Leaves two inches long, and nearly as wide, are very 

 smooth, veined, rather heart-shaped, with a small number of distant 

 and prickly teeth. Male flowers sessile, on slender racemes two 

 inches long ; calyx shorter than the five filaments ; anthers large, 

 bilocular. Female flowers sessile, in the axils of the leaves, gener- 

 ally in pairs ; cups hemispherical and furnished with loose yellow 

 scales ; the acorns three times larger than the cups (about 8 lines 

 long), ovate pointed at the top. 



"15. Quercus lobata. 



"Quercus foliis lobatis, superne orbiculatis, basi cuneatis, lobia 

 dentatis. 



"Of this species I have only seen branches brought from Monterey 

 by Sres. Robredo and Esquerra ; they are alternate, sulcated, and 

 smooth. Leaves alternate, rounded at the top, cuneate toward the 

 base, four inches long, and two and a half wide in the middle and 

 towards the tip ; margins deeply sinuate, lobes obtuse, toothed ; 

 petiole thin, 3-4 lines long." 



3ii, 98(1806). 



2 



