142 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupulifer^. 



inches in lengthy and the pistillate on short tomentose peduncles. The calyx of the staminate flower is 

 pubescent and divided into four or five broadly ovate acute segments shorter than the stamens^ which 

 are four or five in number^ with ovate acute apiculate glabrous anthers bright red when the flowers open 

 and afterward yellow. The involucral scales of the pistillate flower are ovate^ and^ like the acute calyx- 

 lobes^ are coated with pale tomentum ; the stigmas are recurved and dark red. The fruit, which ripens 

 in the autumn of the second season-, is usually borne on a stout peduncle rarely more than half an inch 

 long, and is solitary or clustered ; the nut is oblong, oval or obovate, broad and rounded at the base, 

 full and rounded or gradually narrowed and acute at the puberulous apex, from an inch to an inch and 

 a half long, about three quarters of an inch broad, light chestnut-brown and often striate with dark 

 longitudinal bands ; the thin shell is lined with a thick coat of pale f errugineous tomentum and the 

 astringent seed is covered by a dark red-brown coat ; the cup, which embraces from one quarter to 

 nearly two thirds of the nut, is cup-shaped, light brown and puberulous on the inner surface, and 

 covered by thin ovate-lanceolate lustrous light chestnut-brown scales, which are sometimes rounded and 

 thickened on the back toward the base of the cup ; their tips are elongated, thin and erose on the 

 margins, and often form a narrow fringe-like border to the rim of the cup. 



An inhabitant of valleys and mountain-slopes, Qiiercus Californica is distributed from the basin 

 of the Mackenzie River in western Oregon southward through the California coast mountains and along 

 the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, which it sometimes ascends to elevations of from seven to eight 

 thousand feet, and the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains, finding its southern home on the 

 Cuyamaca Mountains near the southern boundary of California. Comparatively rare in the immediate 

 neighborhood of the California coast, Qitercus Californica is the largest and most abundant Oak-tree 

 of the valleys of southwestern Oregon and of the Sierra Nevada, where it is often found scattered 

 through the coniferous forests, sometimes forming groves of considerable extent, and growing to its 

 largest size at elevations of about six thousand feet above the sea-level. 



The wood of Quercus Californica is heavy, hard, and strong, although very brittle ; it is light red, 

 with thin lighter colored sapwood, and contains broad remote medullary rays and broad bands of several 

 rows of large open ducts conspicuously marking the layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of 

 the absolutely dry wood is 0.6435, a cubic foot weighing 40.10 pounds. Of little value for construc- 

 tion, it is sometimes used for fuel, and the bark is occasionally employed in tanning leather. 



Quercus Californica was discovered in 1846 by Karl Theodore Hartweg near Sonoma, among the 

 foothills of the California Sierras. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 



Plate CCCCXVI. Quercus Californica 



1. A flowering branch, natural size. 



2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 



3. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



4. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



5. A fruit, natural size. 



6. A winter branchlet, natural size. 



