160 PACIFIC STATES FLORAL CONGRESS. 



the Valley Oak. Readily distinguished by the large and very hairy 

 branchlets and buds. Has a long but narrow habitat, or range, near 

 the northern coast of California, the largest trees but a few miles from 

 the ocean, thence extending northward across western Oregon and Wash- 

 ington to the borders of British Columbia.* 



The form called Q. Gilberti, Greene, founded upon dense thickets of 

 oak on the islands and shores of Puget Sound, Sargent regards as a 

 depauperate form of this species with nearly globular, crumpled leaves, 

 the flowers and fruit unknown. Also, Q. Jacobi, A. Brown, with ovate 

 acorns and slightly different leaves, is thought to be but another aberrant 

 form. i y r 



3. Quercus Douglassii. Hooker and Amott. 1841. DOUGLAS 

 OAK, BLUE OAK. 



This local California oak is readily recognized by its small light green 

 or bluish leaves, and its very light gray colored bark on trees growing 

 on exposed hillsides, or darker in sheltered places, and by its location, 

 throughout middle California, becoming trees 20 to 30 feet high on 

 the foot-hills and slopes of the Coast Ranges and the western slope of 

 the Sierra Nevada.** 



The large acorns of the Douglas oak are collected by the "Carpin- 

 tero," or carpenter woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) , which ex- 

 cavates holes in the bark or exposed wood of trees in which to insert 

 these acorns, leaving them there until the larva of a beetle which 

 infests them has grown large enough to furnish his store-room with 

 a season's bounteous supply of fresh canned meats. The acorns of 

 other white oaks, notably those of the Valley Oak, are treated similarly 

 by this provident bird. 



This very showy, gray-leaved oak was first collected near Monterey 



*Tbe type of the species was discovered by Dr. Archibald Menzies, surgeon of 

 Vancouver's Expedition to Puget Sound, but not published until after its discovery 

 by Douglas, who named it in honor of Nicholas Garry, secretary of the Hudson Bay 

 Company; but Dr. William Hooker published the description 1840, hence he is to be 

 credited as the author of the name, according to the modern rules. 



**Iu connection with his description of the Douglas Oak in Sylva of North 

 America, Professor Sargent offers this graceful tribute to the intelligent services of 

 one of California's most industrious and scientific workers. "Miss Eastwood, the 

 curator of the Botanical Department of the California Academy of Sciences, has 

 been of great assistance to me with her unrivaled collection of California oaks, made 

 mostly in the southern part of the state. ' ; The writer has learned that the number 

 of papers of mounted oak specimens in the Academy Herbarium exceeds four 

 hundred -mostly the collection of Miss Alice Eastwood, whom Prof. P. A. Kydberg 

 purposes to justly honor by naming a pretty oak ot her recent discovery in southern 

 Utah, QuercuH Kuxtii-,, <!'. sp. nov. 



