80 



8ILVA OF NOBTH AMERICA. cupuldfer^. 



/ 



the base, acute or rounded at the apex, and divided by deep or shallow wide or narrow sinuses acute 

 or rounded at the bottom into four or five broad or narrow acute or rounded and often mucronate 

 lobes, and are from two to five inches long and from an inch to an inch and three quarters broad ; or 

 they are oval, oblong or obovate, rounded or acute at the apex, equally or unequally wedge-shaped or 

 rounded at the base, regularly or irregularly sinuate-toothed with rounded acute and rigid spmesceut 

 teeth or denticulate toward the apex and entire below, from one to two inches long and from a quarter 

 of an inch to an inch wide ; when they unfold the leaves are covered with soft pale pubescence and 

 are tomentose on the petioles, and at maturity they are thin, although firm and rather rigid, pale blue 

 and pubescent with scattered stellate haks on the upper surface, and on the lower pale blue or often 

 yellow-green and covered with short soft pubescence ; they are more or less conspicuously reticulate- 

 venulose, furnished with pale prominent hirsute or puberulous midribs raised and rounded on the upper 

 side, with primary veins which, when the leaves are lobed, are conspicuous and run to the points of the 

 lobes, and prominent lateral veins arcuate and united near the slightly thickened and revolute margins ; 

 or when the leaves are entu-e or dentate the veins are less prominent and are usually united before 

 reaching the margin ; the leaves are borne on stout grooved petioles varying from a quarter to a half of 

 an inch in length and fall late in the autumn. The stipules are lanceolate-ob ovate or linear-lanceolate, 

 thin and scarious and coated with pale hairs. The flowers appear from February to April, the staminate, 

 which are subtended by linear-lanceolate bracts, are borne in hairy aments, and the pistillate in short 

 few-flowered spikes coated, hke the involucral scales, with hoary tomentum. The calyx of the staminate 

 flower is yellow-green, covered on the outer surface with pale hairs and deeply divided into broad acute 

 laciniately cut segments shorter than the stamens, which are composed of slender filaments and ovate- 

 oblong emarginate glabrous yellow anthers. The acorns are sessile or short-stalked, solitary or in pairs, 

 and are sometimes produced in such abundance that they make the trees, seen from a Httle distance, 

 appear green ; the nut is broadly oval, often ventricose with a narrow base, graduaUy narrowed and acute 

 at the apex, from three quarters of an inch to an inch long and from half an inch to nearly an inch broad, 

 or it is often ovate acute and from an inch to an inch and a half in length and not more than a quarter 

 of an inch in breadth ; it is bright green and lustrous, soon turning dark chestnut-brown in drying, and 

 is furnished at the apex with a small ring of hoary pubescence ; the cup, which embraces only the base 

 of the nut, is cup-shaped, thin and shallow, light green and pubescent on the inner surface and covered 

 on the outer with small acute and usually thin, although sometimes, especially in the south, thicker 

 tumid scales coated with pale pubescence or tomentum and ending in thin reddish brown points. 



Quercus Douylcni'd inhabits low hills, dry mountain-slopes and valleys, and is distributed from 

 Mendocino County, California, and the upper valley of the Sacramento River, southward along the 

 western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, which it ascends to elevations of four thousand feet above the level 

 of the sea, and through the valleys of the coast ranges to the Tehachapi Pass, which it crosses, with 

 occasional stunted individuals, to the borders of the Mohave Desert, and probably grows to its largest 

 size and is most abundant in the Jolon and other valleys between the coast mountains and the interior 

 ridges of the Coast Range south of the Bay of San Francisco. 



The wood of Quercus Douglasli is very hard, heavy and strong, although brittle and inclined to 



check badly in drying. It is dark brown, becoming nearly black with exposure, with thick hght brown 



sapwood,^ and contains numerous meduQary rays, scattered groups of smaU ducts, and rows of large] 

 ducts marking the layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.8928 

 a cubic foot weighing 55.64: pounds. Of Httle use for construction and in the arts, it makes excellem 

 fuel. 



^ The sapwood of Quercus Douglasii is thicker than that of most shows two hundred and thirty-two layers of annual growth, of 



American White Oaks. The log specimen in the Jesup Collection which eighty-eight, measuring three and three fifths inches in thick- 



of North American Woods in the American Museum of Natural ness, are sapwood. 

 History, New York, which is twenty-three inches in diameter, 



