276 



Tan Bark Oak 



The bark is very rich in tannin and is one of the principal tan barks of the Pacific 

 States. 



The genus contains about 25 species, mostly natives of southeastern Asia and 

 the Malay region. Castanopsis sempervirens (Kellogg) Dudley, a shrub of higher 

 altitudes in California and Nevada, was long confused with this tree, which 

 often assumes shrubby forms. The generic name is Greek, in allusion to the 

 resemblance to the Chestnut, the type species being C. armata (D. Don) Spach, 

 of Asia. 



IV. TAN BARK OAK 



GENUS PASANIA [MIQUEL] ORSTED 

 Species Pasania densiflora (Hooker and Arnott) Orsted 

 Querciis densiflora Hooker and Arnott 



[|LSO called Chestnut oak, this is one of the most stately broad-leaved 

 trees of the Pacific States and occurs from southern Oregon southward 

 along the Coast mountains to Santa Barbara county, CaHfomia, attain- 

 ing in its greatest dimensions a height of 30 meters, with a trunk 

 diameter of 1.8 m. Its leaves are evergreen. 



The trunk is tall and straight with a narrow head when growing in the 

 forest; in the open it is shorter and much branched, the outspreading branches 

 forming a broad round-topped tree. The bark is 2 to 3.5 cm. thick, deeply 



and narrowly fissured into broad ridges^ 

 which are much broken into angular scaly 

 plates of a bright reddish brown color. 

 The twigs are short, yellowish hairy the 

 first season, becoming smooth, glaucous^ 

 and dark red-brown; the buds are ovoid, 

 6 to 8 mm. long, sharp-pointed, and cov- 

 ered by woolly, ovate scales and surrounded 

 by awl-shaped stipules. The leaves, which 

 persist for 3 or 4 years, are leathery, ob- 

 long or oblong-obovate, 7 to 12 cm. long, 

 blunt or sharp-pointed, rounded, taper- 

 ing, or often somewhat heart-shaped at the 

 base, sharply toothed, re volute on the mar- 

 gin, densely yellow hairy and glandular at 

 first, becoming pale green, smooth and shin- 

 ing, but often remaining more or less rusty 

 hairy for some time and with prominent 

 midrib above, pale or nearly white, nearly smooth and conspicuously veined 

 beneath. The leaf-stalk is short, stiff and hairy, about 1.5 cm. long; stipules vari- 

 ous, oblong to linear-lanceolate, caducous or the late ones persistent for several 



Fig. 233. Tan Bark Oak. 



