338 



The Oaks 



57. PACIFIC POST OAK Quercus Garryana Douglas 



This oak occurs from Vancouver island and southwestern British Columbia to 

 central California, attaining a maximum height of 45 meters, with a trunk diameter 

 of 1.5 m.; on high mountains or in exposed situations it is reduced to a shrub. 



The branches are stout, spreading and ascending, forming a broad compact 

 tree. The bark is up to 2 cm. thick, shallowly fissured into bluntish ridges 



covered with brown, gray or 

 sometimes orange-brown 

 scales. The twigs are stout, 

 hairy, becoming smooth, red- 

 dish brown or gray. The 

 winter buds are ovoid, 

 sharp-pointed, about i cm. 

 long and very woolly. The 

 leaves are oblong-obovate in 

 outline, i to 1.5 dm. long, 

 the 7 to 9 lobes oblong, en- 

 tire or wavy, rounded or 

 pointed at the apex, the ter- 

 minal one often 3-lobed; the 

 base of the leaf is wedge- 

 shaped or rounded, the mar- 

 gin revolute ; they are thick, 

 quite leathery, dark green, smooth and shining above, light green or yellowish and 

 hairy beneath, with stout yellowish midrib and conspicuous venation, often turn- 

 ing scarlet before falhng in the autumn; the leaf-stalk is stout, hairy, flattened, 12 

 to 25 mm. long. The staminate flowers are in hairy catkins 4 to 5 cm. long; 

 calyx-lobes smooth and sharply toothed; anthers broadly oblong, notched, smooth 

 and yellow; the pistillate flowers are usually sessile, hairy; styles very short, broad 

 and spreading. The fruit ripens the first season, is sessile or nearly so ; nut oval 

 or somewhat obovoid, about 2.5 cm. long, its seed sweet; cup depressed-hemi- 

 spheric, 1.5 to 2 cm. across, light brown and hairy inside, covered with long-tipped, 

 thin or slightly thickened scales. 



The wood is hard, strong and quite tough, close-grained, light yellowish brown; 

 its specific gravity is 0.74. It is the most valuable oak timber on the Pacific slope, 

 where it is used Hke the White oak of the eastern States. The nuts were used 

 as food by the Indians. 



It is also called White oak, Oregon white oak, Oregon oak. Western white 

 oak. Mountain white oak. 



Sadler's oak, Quercus Sadleriana R. Brown, is an interesting shrub of the 

 high mountains of northwestern CaHfornia and adjacent Oregon, with sharply 

 serrate leaves, unlike those of any other American species. 



Fig. 295. Pacific Post Oak. 



