BOTANY, 99 



are often eaten by the Indians and grizzly bears, but there is 

 too little meat on them to pay white men for the trouble of 

 gathering them. The shrub grows in the coast valleys, and 

 in the Sierra Nevada, up near to the limit of perpetual snow. 

 The name means " little apple," manzana being the Spanish 

 for apple. 



§ V5. Gecmothiis. — The ceanothus, sometimes called the Cali- 

 fornian lilac, of which there are many species, is a beautiful 

 evergreen shrub, growing about ten feet high, with clusters 

 of hlac-like flowers, of various shades of blue, violet, and red, 

 according to the species. The tree produces a multitude of 

 little twigs, and a dense foliage, and may be trimmed into 

 almost any shape. 



§ 76. Oaks. — The Californian white oak ( Quercus hi7idsii)^ 

 or long-acorned oak, is a very large tree, and the characteristic 

 oak of California. It resembles the white oak of the Atlantic 

 slope in the color of its bark and the shape of its leaves ; but 

 its growth is very difierent. It seldom reaches a greater 

 height than sixty feet, and is often wider than high. Some- 

 times it measures one hundred and. twenty-five feet from side 

 to side. The trunk, which occasionally grows to be eight feet 

 through, throws out large horizontal boughs within ten feet 

 of the ground, and above that point the trunk is soon lost 

 among the large branches. The tree furnishes no straight 

 timber, and the wood is so soft and brittle as to be of no use 

 in the arts ; whereas the white oak of the Mississippi valley is 

 a most valuable tree, with a trunk so tall and straight, tlmt 

 sills and beams of it sixty feet long are common, and with a 

 wood so tough, that it supplies all the axles and plough-beams 

 of the country. The Californian white oak is not even tit for 

 fence-rails. The tree, however, is very beautiful and majestic, 

 and the open groves of it in the valleys and foot-hills form, as 

 Dr. Newberry says, "the most important element in those 

 scenes of quiet beauty which so often excite the admiration of 

 the traveller in California." The tree bears much resemblance 

 in form and size to the oak of England, the groves of it appear- 



