FOREST TREES. 121 



cASTANOPSis. — California Chestnut or Chinquapin^ 

 Golden-leaved _ Chestnut. 



A curious genus of trees found in Eastern Asia and adjacent 

 islands. Botanically, the genus is intemiediate between the 

 true chestnuts and oaks, represented in this country by one 

 species on the Pacific Coast. 



t'astanopsis cUrjsopliylla, A. Df. — California Chestnut, Chinqua- 

 pin. — Leaves evergreen, thick and leathery, oblong or lanceo- 

 late, two to four inches long, pointed, with short petiole, green 

 above, and densely scurfy beneath. Frait with stout spines, 

 one half to an inch long ; nut usually solitary, somewhat tri- 

 angular, and shell firm and hard. A small tree from thirty to 

 forty feet high, but in some situations only a small, low shrub. 

 From Oregon to Monterey, and in the Sierra Nevada at an alti- 

 tude of six thousand feet, will probably thrive in some of the 

 IVIiddle, and all of the Southern States. 



CASTANEA. — Chestnut. 



A well-known genus containing a limited number of species, 

 of which there are many varieties. The staminate (male) 

 flowers are yellow, and produced in long, pendulous catkins, 

 and the pistillate in a bell-shaped involucre, which, as it en- 

 larges, becomes a globose, prickly fruit, enclosing one to three 

 ovoid, brown nuts. In figure 34 is shown a bunch of chest- 

 nut flowers, the long catkins being the staminate, and above 

 these on a branching flower stem is shown four of the small 

 embryo burs or fruit, the fertile flowers being situated on their 

 apex. On this flower stem, and above the embryo fruit there 

 are also staminate flowers only partly developed, while those 

 below are in full bloom. If the female flowers open too late, 

 or fail to be fertilized by the staminates in the large catkins, 

 they are very certain to be by the later ones situated above 

 them on the fniiting branches as shown. The species are as 

 f oUows : 



fastanea vesca. — European Chestnut. — Leaves oblong-lanceo- 

 lale, pointed, coarsely serrate, smooth on both sides. Nuts 

 large, two to three in each burr. The texture of the nuts are 

 rather coarse, with very little sweetness, and to make them 

 more palatable they are either roasted or boiled. The Euro- 

 pean Chestnut has not as yet been veiy extensively planted in 

 this covmtry, as it is not, as a rule, quite as hardy a tree as the 

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