96 



SILVA OF NORTH A3IERICA. 



CUPULIFEKiE. 



earlier in the winter than the smaller dentate or entire leaves on mainland plants.^ The stipules 

 are linear, obovate or lanceolate, searioiis, licvht brown, coated with pale hairs and caducous. The 

 flowers are produced in early spring with 



the unfolding of 



the leaves ; the staminate are borne in 

 pubescent aments about three inches in length, and the pistillate are sessile or pedunculate ; or rarely the 



flowers are perfect in 



long many-flowered 



tomentose spikes.^ The calyx of the pistiUate flower is 



divided into from four to eight ovate lanceolate hairy segments much shorter than the stamens, which 

 are composed of slender filaments and ovate emarginate glabrous yellow anthers. 



The involucral scales 



clothed with pale tomentum, and the stigmas are red. 



The 



and the calyx of the pistillate flower are 

 acorns are usually solitary, and are sessile or short-pedunculate ; the nut is oval, broad at the base, broad 

 and rounded or narrowed and acute at the apex, from half an inch to an inch and a half long and from 

 one third to nearly two thirds of an inch broad ; the cup, which incloses from one third to nearly two 

 thirds of the nut, is deeply cup-shaped or hemispherical ; it is light brown and pubescent within, and is 

 covered by ovate pointed scales coated with pale or rufous tomentum ; these, except on the upper part 

 of the cup, are generally much thickened, united and tuberculate, and are sometimes furnished with 

 thin free acute tips ; above they are small and thin with minute free hairy tips which form a slight fringe 

 to the rim of the cup, or frequently the basal scales are scarcely or not at all thickened and are 



furnished with larger free tip 



In 



Califo 



d 



ally in southern California, a variety of Q 



dumosa 



3 



th rounder, thicker, and paler leaves, which are concave and covered with hoary tomentum 



labrous on the upper surface and strongly revolute with entire or spinescent margins, and 



lually 



with less pointed nuts and rather shallower cups 



Q 



dumosa is sometimes found 



the 



slop 



of the S 



Nevada Mountains 



California ; * it is common on the coast ranges south of San Francisco Bay, inhabits the islands off the 

 coast of the southern part of the state, where it grows to its largest size, and extends inland to the 

 borders of the Mohave Desert and the canons of the desert slopes of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto 

 Mountains, rang-ino^ southward in Lower California to the hills near San Telmo.^ North of San Fran- 

 cisco Bay it is replaced by the variety revohita^ which ranges as far north as Mendocino County and to 

 Napa Valley. 



Querciis dumosa was discovered by Thomas Nuttall on the hills near Santa Barbara in the spring 



of 1835. 



1 No one could imagine simply from an examination of herba- acute entire or dentate thick and rigid leaves about three quar- 



rium specimens that the insular foiun, with lobed leaves (Plate ters of an inch long, slender elongated nuts and comparatively 



cccxciii. f. 1, 4) resembling those of some forms of Quercus Gam- shallow cups with thin scales, appears distinct in extreme forms, but 



helii, could belong to this species. When the plants, however, are more spinescent leaved forms with thicker and more tuberculate 



seen in the canons of Santa Catalina Island it becomes apparent cups grow with it, and I cannot jfind varietal characters by which 



that the occasional trees with large lobed leaves are only more to separate them. I have not seen this plant alive. 



vigorous individuals of a species which in the same thickets pro- 



2 A monstrous condition (^Quercus dumosa polycarpa) noticed by 



duce small and entire or spinescent or slightly lobed leaves ; in Professor Greene, who believed it to be a second flowering from a 

 these tliickets individual plants bear entire, spinescent, and variously second annual growth. 



lobed large and small leaves on the same or on different branches, 



3 



Quercus dumosa, var. revoluta, Sargent, Garden and Forest^ viii. 



and vigorous shoots on plants with otherwise mostly small entire 93 (1895) (Plate cccxcii. f. 5, 6). 



leaves often bear large lobed leaves ; and these large-leaved indi- 

 viduals seen from a little distance cannot be distinguished by habit, 

 color, or general appearance from their smaller leaved associates. 

 Half a dozen species or well marked varieties might be established 

 from as many isolated branches selected from plants of Quercus 



Quercus durnosa, var, hullata, Engelmann, Trans, St, Louis 

 Acad, iii. 393 (not Quercus Robur bidlata, A. de Candolle) (1877); 

 Brewer tV Watson Bat, CaL ii. 96. — Wenzig, Jahrb, Bot. Gart, 

 Berlin^ iii. 204. — Greene, Man. Bot. Bay Region, 302. 

 ^ A common small-leaved form of Quercus dumosa was collected 



dumosa on Santa Catalina Island (Plate cccxciii.), and all their at Sherlock, in Mariposa County, by Mr. J. W. Congdon, in the 



characters might be found on a single plant. 



form 



spring of 1894. 



5 Brandegee, Zoe, iv. 209. 



tain 



