ROSACER. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 59 
VAUQUELINIA CALIFORNICA. 
Leaves narrowly lanceolate, coated on the lower surface with white tomentum. 
Vauquelinia Californica, Sargent, Garden and Forest, ii. Wauquelinia Torreyi, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 147.— 
400. Brewer & Watson, Bot. Cal. i. 169. — Maximowicz, Act. 
Spirea Californica, Torrey, Hmory’s Rep. 140. Hort. Petrop. vi. 237 (Adnot. Spireaceis, 133). — Hems- 
Vauquelinia corymbosa, Torrey, Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. ley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 370. — Sargent, Forest Trees 
64 (not Correa). NV. Am. 10th Census U. 8. ix. 70. 
A small tree, eighteen or twenty feet in height, with a slender often hollow trunk five or six inches 
in diameter, and rigid upright contorted branches ; or more often a low shrub. The bark of the trunk 
is a sixteenth of an inch thick, with a dark red-brown surface broken into small thin square plate-like 
persistent scales. The branches are at first bright reddish brown and more or less thickly covered with 
pale tomentum ; and in their second year are light brown or gray and marked with large elevated leaf- 
sears. The leaves are narrowly lanceolate, acuminate or rarely rounded at the apex, obliquely wedge- 
shaped or slightly rounded at the base, and remotely serrate with minute glandular teeth; when they 
unfold they are puberulous on the upper, and densely tomentose on the lower surface, and at maturity 
are coriaceous, bright yellow-green and glabrous on the upper, and tomentose, or late in the season 
puberulous, below; they are from an inch and a half to three inches long, and from one quarter to one 
half of an inch broad, with thick conspicuous midribs grooved on the upper side, and numerous thin 
primary veins connected by reticulate veinlets, and are borne on thick channeled petioles from one third 
to one half of an inch in length, and fall in spring or early summer. ‘The stipules are minute, acute, 
and early deciduous. The flowers, which appear in June, are a quarter of an inch in diameter and are 
produced in great numbers in loose wide-branched panicles two or three inches across and coated with 
white tomentum ; they vary from those of the type of the genus only in their slightly oblong petals 
and the pilose inner surface of the disk. The fruit, which is fully grown by the end of August, is then 
conspicuous on account of the contrast between the bright red faded petals and the white silky cover- 
ing of the calyx and carpels; it is a quarter of an inch long, and remains on the branches after open- 
ing until the spring of the following year. The seed is a twelfth of an inch in length, or one third as 
long as the oblong wing. 
Vauquelinia Californica inhabits the mountain ranges of southern Arizona and those of Sonora 
and Lower California,’ but has not been seen with the habit of a tree except on the Santa Catalina 
Mountains of Arizona; here at an elevation of some five thousand feet above the level of the sea it 
reaches its largest size in rich granite soil baked by the direct rays of the sun, growing on the bottoms 
or rocky sides of gulches, or often on grassy slopes and chiefly associated with Quercus grisea and 
Quercus oblongifolia ; and towards the base of these mountains is common in a shrubby form with 
Celtis pallida, Fendlera rupicola, Fouquieria splendens, and Rhamnus Purshiana. 
The wood of Vauquelinia Californica is very heavy, hard, and close-grained, and is susceptible of 
receiving a beautiful polish. It contains numerous thin medullary rays, and is dark rich brown streaked 
with red, with thin yellow sapwood composed of fourteen or fifteen layers of annual growth. The 
specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 1.1374, a cubic foot weighing 70.88 pounds.” 
Vauquelinia Californica was discovered in October, 1846, by a detachment of United States troops 
1 T. S. Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii, 154 (Pl. Baja Cal.). American Woods in the American Museum of Natural History in 
2 The stems of Vauquelinia Californica increase very slowly in New York, which is only seven inches in diameter, with one hun- 
diameter“as shown by the specimen in the Jesup Collection of North dred and four layers of annual growth. 
