LAURACE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



21 



UMBELLULARIA CALIFORNICA. 



California Laurel. Spice Tree. 



Umbellularia 



Watson 



61. 



Sargent, Forest 



N. 



Mez 



Konii 

 nog.). 



GaH. V. 482 



Ma 



Dippel, Handh. Laubholzk. iii. 96, f. 46. 



Man 



Coville, Contrib. U. 



Nat. Herb. iv. 192 (Bot. Death Valley Exped 



Tetranthera ? 



Arnott 



Beechey, 159 (1833). — Meisner, De Candolle Prodr. xv, 



pt. i. 192. 



Wilkes Explor. Exped 



Oreodaphne Calif or nica, C. G. Nees ab Esenbeck, Syst. 

 Later. 463 (1836). — Bentham, Fl. Hartweg. 334; Bot. 

 Voy. Sulphur, 49. — Dietrich, Syn. ii. 1356. — Hooker & 

 Arnott, Bot. Voy. Beechey, 389. — Torrey, Facifie B. B. 

 Bep. iv. 133 ; v. 364 ; Bot. Mex. Bound. Surv. 184. 



Newberry, Facifie R. B. Rep. vi. 24, f. 3, 88. 

 Mag. Ixxxviii. t. 5320. 



Bot. 



Drimophylluin pauciflorum, Nuttall, Sylva, i. 85, t. 22 

 (1842). 



The California Laurel is a tree eighty to ninety feet in height, with a trunk four or five feet in 

 diameter, sometimes tall and straight but usually dividing near the ground into several large diverging 

 stems, and stout spreading branches which form a broad round-topped compact head ; or at high eleva- 

 tions above the level of the sea and in southern California much smaller and often reduced to a low 

 shrub. The bark of the trunk is three quarters of an inch to an inch in thickness, and dark brown 



tinged with red, separating on the surface into thin appressed 



The branches, when they first 



appear, are light green and coated with soft pale pubescence ; they soon become glabrous and yellow- 

 green, and in their second and third seasons are light brown tinged with red. The leaves are two to five 

 inches long and half an inch to an inch and a half wide, and are borne on petioles which vary from a 

 quarter to a half of an inch in length ; they first unfold in the winter or early in the spring, continuing 

 to appear as the branches lengthen until late in the autumn, and, beginning to fade during the summer, 



turn 



beautiful yellow or orange 



and fall 



by one during their second season, or often 



remain on the branches until the sixth year, or gradually become rusty brown, dry, and more or less 

 curled. The flowers, which are produced in many-flowered umbels on pedicels sometimes an inch in 

 length, are a third of an inch across when fuUy expanded ; they first appear in January or February 

 before the unfolding of the young leaves, in the axils of those of the previous year, from buds formed 

 the previous summer, and at this season often quite cover the tree with their star-like clusters. Later, 

 as the leaves of the year develop on the young branches, occasional flower-clusters appear in their axils, 

 and thus the trees are frequently in blossom during several months of the spring and summer. The 



. in clusters of two or three on its elongated thickened stalks 



fruit is about an inch long, and hang 

 which remain on the branch after the fruit ripens and falls late in the autumn. The seeds germ 

 soon after they reach the ground, the fruit remaining below the surface of the soil and attached t( 

 young plants until midsummer, when they are often six or eight inches tall 



the 



Umhellularia Californlca ^ is distributed from the vaUey of the Rogue River in Oregon through 



the 



thern 



the California coast ranges and along the high western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to 



slopes of the San Bernardino Mountains, which it ascends to an elevation of twenty-five hundred feet 



It 



,lly grows near the banks of watercourses, and sometimes on low hills whe 



strata of 



A common tree wherever 



rock permit it to send down its roots to drink at deep subterranean springs, 

 it can obtain an abundant supply of water, the California Laurel is most abundant and attains its great 

 est size in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, in which, accompanied by the broad-leaved Maple 

 it sometimes forms a considerable part of the forest growth. 



1 Umbellularia Californica is also sometimes called Mountain 

 Laurel, Cajeput, California Olive, and Bay-tree. 



Parish. Zoe, iv. 344 



