4 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CUPULIFER. 
puberulous, from one quarter to one third of an inch long, and caducous. The flowers mostly appear in 
summer, but also irregularly from June until February, in three-flowered clusters in the axils of broadly 
ovate apiculate pubescent bracts on staminate and androgynous scurfy stout-stemmed aments from two 
to two and a half inches in length and crowded at the ends of the branches, the pistillate clusters being 
solitary or in groups of two or three at the base of some of the lower aments. The calyx of the 
staminate flower is coated on the outer surface with hoary tomentum, and is divided into five or six 
broadly ovate rounded lobes much shorter than the slender stamens, which are inserted under the margin 
of a thin bright scarlet torus surrounding the minute tomentose abortive ovary. The calyx of the 
pistillate flower is oblong-campanulate, free from the ovary, clothed with hoary tomentum, divided at 
the apex into short rounded lobes, and rather shorter than the minute abortive stamens, which have red 
anthers; the ovary is conical, sessile on a thin torus, coated with pale hairs, and surmounted by three 
elongated slightly spreading stout pale stigmas. The fruit ripens during the second season; the invo- 
lucres are then globose, dehiscent, irregularly four-valved, sessile, solitary, or often clustered, tomentose 
and covered on the outer surface by long stout or slender rigid sharp-pointed spines, and coated within 
with long pale hairs; they vary from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, and contain one or 
occasionally two nuts which are broadly ovate, oblong, obtusely three angled, marked at the broad base 
by conspicuous umbilical scars and tipped at the apex with the stout remnants of the styles coated with 
pale tomentum; they are light yellow-brown and lustrous, with a thick shell of two coats, the outer 
being hard and bony and three or four times as thick as the inner, which is membranaceous, and lined 
with a dense coat of ferrugineous tomentum. The sweet and edible seed fills the cavity of the nut, and 
is covered with a thin dark purple-red membranaceous testa. 
Castanopsis chrysophylia is distributed from the valley of the Columbia River southward along 
the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, which it ascends to elevations of about four thousand feet 
above the level of the sea, along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, and through the California 
coast ranges to the elevated valleys of the San Jacinto Mountains.’ 
A small tree in Oregon and on the California Sierras, and usually shrubby at high elevations and 
on the California coast ranges south of the Bay of San Francisco, the golden-leaved Chestnut attains its 
greatest size and beauty in the humid climate of the coast valleys of northern California, where, scattered 
among coniferous trees, it is one of the noblest and most beautiful inhabitants of the forest, with its 
fluted columnar trunk and brilliant leaves, bright green and lustrous on the upper surface and golden 
yellow on the lower. 
The wood of Castanopsis chrysophylla is light, soft, and close-grained, but not strong ; it contains 
numerous obscure medullary rays and large open ducts marking with single rows the layers of annual 
growth. It is hght brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood composed of from fifty 
to sixty layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.5574, a cubic 
foot weighing 34.74 pounds, and, lke the bark, is exceedingly rich in tannin similar to that of the 
Oak.? In southern Oregon and northern California it is occasionally used in the manufacture of plows 
and other agricultural implements. 
Castanopsis chrysophylla was discovered in 1830 by David Douglas* at the Cascades of the 
Columbia River, near the northern limits of its range. It was introduced into English gardens by 
Joseph Burke* before 1847, and is occasionally cultivated in European collections.° 
1. B. Parish, Zoé, iv. 346. mission to northwestern America, where he probably remained until 
2 Trimble, Garden and Forest, viii. 293. 1846 or 1847, as his correspondence with Sir William J. Hooker, 
3 See ii. 94. preserved in the library of the Royal Gardens at Kew, shows that 
4 Joseph Burke, a gardener of the Earl of Derby on his estate in November of the latter year he was in London. Of his subse- 
of Knowlsley, was sent by him to collect plants in south Africa quent career nothing is known. Burkea, a genus of south African 
in 1839. (See Hooker, Lond. Jour. Bot. ii. 163.) He returned to woody plants, was dedicated to him by Hooker. 
England in 1843, and in the following year was sent on a similar 5 Gard. Chron. n. ser. xiv. 435 ; ser. 3, xviii. 716. 
