3IO 



The Oaks 



brown and silky inside, embracing about one third of the nut, covered with thin 

 oblong-lanceolate blunt scales. 



The wood is hard, close-grained and brittle, reddish brown; its specific gravity 

 is 0.82. It is seldom used except for fuel, for which, however, it is largely employed. 



The fruit is used for food by the Indians of Lower California, by being ground 

 into meal, washed, and baked into cakes. 



Quercus pumila Walter, the Running oak of the southeastern States, from North Carolina 

 to Florida, an evergreen shrub with long underground stems, thick narrow leaves, and small 

 acorns ripening the first season, is not known to ever form a tree. 



27. WILCOX'S OAK Quercus WUcoxii Rydberg 



Rarely a tree 6 to 9 meters tall, this shrub occurs in the mountains of Utah, 

 Nevada, Arizona, and probably in New Mexico and adjacent Mexico; it is very 

 similar to the White Hve oak, Q. chrysolepis Liebmann, of Cahfomia. 



The bark is dark gray or brownish. The 

 twigs are hairy, soon becoming smooth, gray or 

 brown. The buds are small, hairy and brown. 

 The leaves are ovate to broadly oval, i to 4 cm. 

 long, abruptly short taper-pointed, tapering at 

 the base to a stout petiole i to 4 mm. Ibng, entire 

 or with few bristle-tipped teeth on the revolute 

 margin, those of vigorous sterile shoots quite 

 different, broader or almost orbicular in outline, 

 with rounded or heart-shaped base and deeply 

 bristle-toothed margin; they are thick, firm and 

 leathery, yellowish hairy when young, pale yel- 

 lowish green, smooth and shining above, very 

 pale, almost white, dull and punctate beneath, 

 persisting until the new ones unfold. The fruit 

 is stalked; nut ovoid, about 5 mm. long, hght 

 brown and smooth inside; cup hemispheric, 10 to 14 mm. across, embracing about 

 one fourth of the nut and covered by sharp-pointed, slightly thickened, somewhat 

 hairy, ovate scales. 



Fig. 262. Wilcox's Oak. 



28. WHITE LIVE OAK Quercus chrysolepis Liebmann 



This evergreen oak occurs from southern Oregon south along the mountains 

 to Lower California, reaching in its greatest development a height of 24 meters, 

 with a trunk diameter of 2.7 m., in the^ foothills of the Sierra Nevada in central 

 Cahfomia. At high altitudes it is sometimes reduced to a shrub. 



The trunk is usually short, divided into large widely spreading or drooi)ing 

 branches often touching the ground and forming a very broad tree, usually round- 

 topped when not crowded. The bark is up to 4 cm. thick, smooth, except for some 



