S8 WEST AMERICAN OAKS. 



thing more than four thousand feet above the sea, and is kept cool and moist by heavy 

 fogs which prevail during all the rainless season of the year. From within a stone's throw 

 of where the trees stand begins that very precipitous descent, towards the base of which 

 grow the palm trees peculiar to the Island. The oak trees apparently in the vigor of 

 early maturity, are shapely, of middle size, rather compact in their growth, and my recol- 

 lection is that there were not more than four or five of them. 



In entirely different soil, and on the very opposite kind of exposure, namely, in certain 

 dry, heated canons of the southeastward slope of the Island, I observed other oak trees, 

 of smaller foliage, and of a looser and less symmetrical habit. The two looked like 

 different species ; but Dr. Engelmann concluded them to be the same. The trees observed 

 by me on Santa Cruz Island corresponded more to those of the hot cafions of Guadalupe 

 than to those of the cool moist crest of the island. The acorn cups of the accompanying 

 Plate are from the typical trees, and were brought by me in 1885 from the point above 

 indicated. The branchlet with leaves is of the smaller-leaved form, and the specimen is 

 from the Island of Santa Cruz. 



