OAK FAMILY 7 1 



of clustered pistillate catkins, which do not become permanent 

 woody cones. 



FAGACEAE. Oak Family. 

 Trees and shrubs with hard wood and alternate simple 

 leaves. Staminate flowers in slender clusters (catkins) ; calyx 

 several-lobed; stamens 4 to 12; petals none. Pistillate flowers 

 borne on the same plant, 1 to 3 in each scaly involucre; ovary 

 adherent to the calyx; petals none. 



Fruit a smooth acorn borne in a scaly cup 1. Quercus. 



Fruit a spiny bur containing 1 to 3 nuts 2. Castanea. 



1. QUERCUS. Oak. 



Flowers greenish or yellowish, the staminate in pendulous 

 catkins; pistillate in young leaf-axils, the ovary with 3 to 5 

 styles or stigmas. Fruit an acorn in a scaly cup. 



Bark gray or whitish; stigmas sessile or nearly so. 



Tree (sometimes dwarfed) ; acorn-cup thick, with gold- 

 en fuzz 1. Q. chrysolepis. 



Shrub ; cup thin, without golden fuzz 2. Q. vaccinifolia. 



Bark dark or black; stigmas on long styles. 



Leaves entire or merely spiny-toothed 3. Q. wislizenii. 



Leaves with bristle-tipped lobes 4. Q. kelloggii. 



1. Q. chrysolepis Liebm. Maul Oak. Leaves ovate or 

 oblong-ovate, acute, entire or toothed 

 (even on the same twig), 1 to 3 in. 

 long, green above, golden beneath with 

 a fine fuzz, becoming smooth and pale. 

 Acorns ovate, globose, or cylindric, 

 either blunt or acute, 1 to V/z in. long, 

 in very shallow fuzzy cups. 



The Maul Oak is a gray-barked, \T = ~*^ 



evergreen tree, 20 to 60 ft. high, with 

 roundish or spreading crown. It is 

 one of the live oaks and belongs to the foothills and the 

 Yellow Pine Belt, becoming dwarfed along its upper limits. 

 It may be distinguished, even in its shrubby form, by the 

 golden-yellow color of the backs of some of its leaves and 

 by the golden fuzz on the thick acorn-cups. 



2. Q. vaccinifolia Kell. Huckleberry Oak. Leaves oval 

 or oblong and obtuse, or ovate-lanceolate and acute, mostly 

 entire, }£ to \ l / 2 in. long, J4 to l A in. wide, short-petioled, not 

 golden beneath and the margins not rolled back. Acorns 

 globose-ovate, ^ to y 2 in. long, in thin cups % in. deep. 



This oak forms meadowy patches of low chaparral around 



