IN CALIFORNIA 207 



form but surprisingly large, each sometimes a square 

 foot or more in area. Few trees are more striking 

 than this noble maple in the spring, when its crown 

 of generous foliage is enlivened with pendent fra- 

 grant clusters of yellow bloom. Like its eastern 

 cousins it is deciduous, and the leaves before falling, 

 take on the beautiful golden tints of autumn. The 

 timber possesses qualities valued by builders, who 

 put it into the hardwood floors of many a Pacific 

 coast bungalow. 



Of the oaks which the early Spaniards called 

 robles and encinas, something has been said in a 

 previous chapter. Though less numerous to-day 

 than in former times, their symmetrical, spreading 

 crowns still dot valley and mountain side, and 

 awaken the admiration of every observant traveler. 

 The ground beneath one of these magnificent trees 

 makes a fascinating camping place, the great, lower 

 limbs often drooping at the tips to enclose it as with 

 the wall of a tent, thirty or forty feet from side to 

 side ; and every summer in some parts of the State, 

 whole families make such spots their home for 

 longer or shorter periods, bringing their cots and 

 cookstoves, and tasting in this twentieth century of 

 grace the delights of those early times when primi- 

 tive man, awakening to thoughts of architecture, be- 

 gan building his shelters each with a tree for a cen- 



