208 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



ter. It is an interesting fact that the two most dis- 

 tinctive species of California oaks the deciduous 

 Quercus lobata and the evergreen Quercus agri- 

 folia were the first of all California trees to be 

 published by a botanist, the Spaniard Nee being the 

 author of the descriptions of both (Madrid, 1801). 

 They are wholly of California, being found indig- 

 enous nowhere else in the world, if we count the 

 lower peninsula within the term. An interesting 

 feature of several species of the California oaks, in- 

 cluding these two, is the occasional remarkable slen- 

 derness of the acorn, reduced at times to the simili- 

 tude of a long, stout spine. In some regions of the 

 State, as in the Paso de los Eobles traversed by the 

 Southern Pacific Coast Line between San Francisco 

 and Los Angeles, the oaks are noticeably draped 

 with hanging tufts of gray, which travelers are apt 

 to take for the " Florida moss" of the live oaks in 

 the South Atlantic States. They are not at all that 

 flowering epiphyte, however, but a very different 

 plant a species of lichen. 



Three Rare Conifers 



The coniferous woodlands of the Pacific Coast are 

 not only in many respects the most remarkable in 

 the world for beauty and grandeur, but they pos- 

 sess another interest in including a fir, a pine and a 



