1^ 



Plate XXXVII. 



QUERCUS GILBERTI. 



Description. A depressed shrub with long wand-like and somewhat trailing densely 

 leafy branches : leaves two inches long and nearly or quite as broad, deeply pinnate-lobed, 

 the lobes closing the sinuses and even somewhat overlapping one another, dilated above 

 and coarsely but acutely toothed or lobed ; upper surface glabrous, shining but minutely 

 rugose-reticulate, the lower face puberulent and with conspicuous veins and veinlets ; 

 petioles stout, two lines long : winter buds ovate, puberulent : flowers and fruit unknown. 



Habitat. On the rocky summit of Lopez Island in Puget's Sound. 



Since the islands in the Sound are not at all likely to yield endemic shrubs or trees, 

 this interesting new oak will naturally be looked for on the mountains of western and 

 southern Washington, or even Oregon. 



Remarks. The cut of the foliage, with its numerous and very acute lobes, is 

 altogether that of a member of the Black Oak series ; and my first impression was that 

 it would stand near the ordinary western deciduous Black Oak, Q. Kelloggii. But I am 

 now convinced that it is \.xvXy a White Oak, and allied to Q. QLrstediana. 



The almost orbicular general outline of the leaf, and its deep, crowded and even 

 imbricated, doubly lobed margin are very striking peculiarities. But these are the leaves 

 of sterile shoots, and the low trailing shrub which the collector, in his first letter concerning 

 it, has spoken of as a " Vine Oak," so far as known bears no other kind. Nevertheless, 

 one may dare to predict that, if the shrub is ever found in a more perfect state, the fruiting 

 branches will exhibit leaves of a less complicated marginal indentation, and perhaps of a 

 somewhat different general outline. In almost all our oaks, vigorous sterile shoots bear 

 leaves far from typical. 



In the Siskiyou Mountains early last September, while studying Q. Qirstedtana, I 

 observed and collected a low and slender scrub oak, which was fruiting plentifully, and 

 which I could not refer to that species. This may possibly at some future time be identified 

 as the fruiting state of Q. Gilberti ; but the leaves are more elongated, the sinuses are 

 open, and even those of sterile shoots were destitute of that peculiarly great relative 

 breadth and fulness of margin which are so characteristic of the insular shrub here figured. 

 The acorns are three-fourths of an inch long, oblong, obtuse, and but slightly inserted into 



