46 ERYTHEA. 



Yancouver states that, while at Santa Barbara, in the autumn 

 of 1793: "We here procured some stout knees from the 

 holly-leaved oak, for the security of the Discovery's head and 

 bumkins; this and our other occupations fully engaging our 

 time for a week." This is certainly the first recorded 

 instance of the employment of Californian oak timber in the 

 shipbuilder's art, and it is a rather early record. 



But Vancouver's allusions to this tree are not quite the 

 earliest of all. Perhaps the first historic mention of the 

 species is that made by Father Yenegaz, in 1758, in his Nat- 

 ural and Civil History of California. The passage which I 

 shall cite is at page 46 of the first volume of that valuable 

 record-book. Writing, as he does, mainly upon the country 

 now known as Lower California he says, after having spoken 

 of the vegetation of that peninsula, that "In the countries not 

 yet settled, lying between the Colorado Eiver and the Coasts 

 of Monterey and Cape Mendocino, fathers Kino and Juan de 

 Torquemada relate that there is a great number of large 

 trees, holms, pines, and black and white poplars." 



Now that this passage, short as it is, involves specific men- 

 tion of our common live oak, is clear enough to the critical 

 student of ancient and modern dendrology; but the fact 

 may here claim a demonstration. A brief exposition of the 

 meaning of that English word holm — obsolete with us, if not 

 even in modern England also — will settle the question con- 

 clusively. The English-speaking people of one and two and 

 three centuries ago used the word oak with another meaning 

 than that which it conveys to our mind — a restricted mean- 

 ing; a meaning which excluded all such trees of this alliance 

 as were evergreen and had prickly foliage. This kind they 

 called holm. I believe they have but one sort of holm or 

 evergreen Black Oak in Europe; but our Californian tree, 

 though specifically distinct, is so much like its European 

 analogue that doubtless the early observers may have 

 taken it for almost or alto^rether the same thing. 



But the quotation I have given from Father Vene- 

 gaz, is from the English translation; and the use of the word 



