38 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



or exceptionally considerably greater thickness and vested in a light gray 

 bark with rather narrow scaly ridges. 



HABITAT. From Sonoma County, California, northward, principally 

 coastwise, through Oregon, Washington and into British Columbia, 

 growing on the foothills and mountain slopes to a moderate height in 

 dry gravely soil. Common and especially important northward. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, hard, strong, tough, compact 

 and of a light-brown color with buff-white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 

 0.7453; Percentage of Ash, 0.39; Relative Approximate Fad Value, 0.7424; 

 Coefficient of Elasticity, 81109 ; Modulus of Rupture, 879 ; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 505; Resistance to Indentation, 240 ; Weight of a 

 Cubic Foot in Pounds, 46.45. 



USES. One of the most valuable of the oaks of the Pacific coast, be- 

 ing there what the White Oak (Q. alba) is in the east, to which it is lit- 

 tle inferior, and it is applied to quite the same uses, as for furniture, the 

 manufacture of agricultural implements, carriages, furniture, interior 

 finishing and for shipbuilding, cooperage, etc., and largely for fuel. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. Though this species is not mentioned as of 

 medicinal value, astringent and tonic properties found in the other oaks 

 are also found in this. 



137. QUERCUS AGRIFOLIA, NEE. 

 COAST LIVE OAK, HOLLY-LEAVED OAK. 



Ger., Immergrune Eiche von der Kilste ; Fr., Chene vert de la cote, Sp., 



Enema. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves oval-orbicular to oblong, 2-3 in. long, coriaceous, 

 subpersistent, sinuately spinous-toothed or occasionally a part of the leaves entire, 

 more or less concave beneath, obtuse or rounded (sometimes cordate) at base, rather 

 pale green and smooth when old, without lustre, with downy petioles usually about 

 in. long, these as with the new growths and leaves when young pubescent with 

 deciduous stellate hairs. Flowers in abundant glabrate ainents; calyx with 5-6 ovate 

 lobes; anthers about 6 (sometimes 8 or 10), obtuse or cuspidate; abortive ovules borne 

 at the top of the seed; stigmas on long spreading recurved styles. Fruit acorns ma- 

 turing the first season (hence on the young shoots) sessile or nearly so, solitary or 

 clustered, with elongated tapering nut 1-1J in. long and about \ in. thick, conspicu- 

 ously lineate when fresh, and with thin turbinated cup, about as broad as deep, and 

 composed of small membranous imbricated, closely appressed, grayish-brown, pubes- 

 cent scales. 



Var. fratescens, the Scrub Oak, is shrubby in habit, with smaller leaves (about 1 

 in. long) and smaller crowded acorns scarcely 1 in. long. 



(The specific name agrifolia is from the Latin acer, sharp, smd folium, leaf, allud- 

 ing to the spinous-toothed leaves.) 



This picturesque oak occasionally attains the height of 80 ft. (25 m.), 

 and 6 or 7 ft. (2 m.) in diameter of trunk, and rarely even surpasses those 

 dimensions, but commonly does not nearly attain them. It is a tree 



