Plate XXVI. 



QUERCUS TOMBNTELLA, Engelmann. 



Bibliography. 



QuERCUs CHRYSOLEPis, Engelm., Proc. Am. Acad, xi, 119 (1876), not of Liebm. 

 QuERCUS TOMENTELLA, Engelm., Trans. St. Louis Acad, iii, 388 & 393 (1876); Bot. 

 Calif, ii, 97 (1879). 



, Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad, i, 218, (1885), ib. ii, 412 (1877). 



, Brandegee, Proc. Calif. Acad. 2 ser. i, 217 (1888). 



, Greene, West Am. Oaks, 45 (1889). 



, Sargent, in " Garden and Forest," ii, 471 (1889). 



Description. Tree of middle size, symmetrical and compact, the brancblets tomentose : 

 leaves oblong-lanceolate, three or four inches long, on petioles as many lines in length, 

 obtuse at base, acute or rounded at apex, crenate-toothed or entire, plane or with revolute 

 margins, coriaceous, densely tomentose when young, glabrous above when old : aments 

 and oval calyx-lobes stellate pubescent : nut of large size, ovate, set in a broad and not deep 

 hemispherical cup which is soft tomentose within, and externally distinctly scaly, the 

 scales large and triangular, usually with more or less of a ligulate apiculation. 



Habitat. Confined to a few islands of the coast, from Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz, 

 off the City of Santa Barbara in the southern part of California, to Guadalupe far south- 

 ward and off the Lower California peninsula ; but not hitherto found on the intervening 

 large islands of Santa Catalina and San Clemente. 



Remarks. Being exclusively insular in its distribution, this is an oak of uncommon 

 botanical interest. It is one of a very few arboreal growths which are endemic to our 

 southwestern island chain, and which combine with a large number of shrubby and herba- 

 ceous plants, equally peculiar to the archipelago, to raise most curious questions of 

 geological history, and of plant distribution on this side of our continent. 



The type-trees of this species, if one may use such phrase, occupy a bleak crest near 

 the northeast end of Guadalupe Island, where they were first seen by the well known 

 botanical traveler and collector. Dr. Edward Palmer, in the year 1875, and were visited 

 by the present writer ten years later. This crest of the island holds an elevation of some- 



