308 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



oaks are arranged in rows running from bark to center rather than 

 parallel with the annual rings. No clear line is distinguishable between 

 spring and summerwood. 



Cordwood constitutes the most important use for California live 

 oak. It rates high in fuel value, and the many large and crooked limbs 

 make the tree an ideal one, from the cordwood cutter's viewpoint. By 

 carefully ricking the wood, with the crooks and elbows in every possible 

 direction at which some cordwood cutters are very proficient a cord 

 of wood may be constructed in the forest, which, when sold and 

 delivered in the buyer's shed, contracts like an accordion. 



CANYON LivB OAK (Quercus chrysolepis). This splendid California oak bears 

 many names. It is an evergreen, and therefore is called live oak. It is hard when 

 thoroughly seasoned, and this has won for it the name iron oak. Wagon makers 

 often so designate it. It is called Valparaiso oak, but for what reason is not apparent. 

 Black live oak doubtless refers to the dark color of the foliage. The most shapely 

 trees grow in the bottoms of canyons, and the name, canyon live oak, refers to that 

 circumstance. Hickory oak is not an appropriate name, though it doubtless im- 

 plies that the wood possesses the toughness of hickory. It is about as tough as white 

 oak. The name golden cup oak is a translation of its botanical name which, in 

 Greek, means "golden scale," a reference to a yellow tomentum or wool which covers 

 the cups of the acorns. The wood's hardness qualifies it to serve as mauls, hence the 

 name maul oak. 



The northern limit of its growth is in southern Oregon. It goes south from there 

 on the coast ranges of California and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas to the 

 highlands of southern California. Its growth on the mountains of southern Arizona 

 and New Mexico is always shrubby. The lowest limit of its range is about 1,000 feet 

 above sea level, the best specimens occurring at low altitudes in the sheltered canyons 

 of the coast ranges of California. Gradually diminishing in size, it grows to the very 

 tops of many of the high mountains, sometimes reaching 9,000 feet, being not more 

 than a foot high at the upper limits of its range. In appearance this tree resembles 

 the eastern live oak (Quercus wrginiana), having the same majestic wide-spreading 

 crown, except in the high altitudes where it forms dense thickets covering large areas. 



When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic appearance 

 of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150 feet across, the bole short 

 and thick, and the great branches long and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber 

 Spanish moss that is often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states, 

 but there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs. One hundred 

 and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of crown, one hundred feet being a 

 good average size, and forty or fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes 

 reaches 100. The bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch 

 thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky and pliable 

 and fall off. 



The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white oak. The 

 tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its two-year acorns which class it 

 in the black oak group. The wood resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds 

 per cubic foot. 



Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They remain on 

 the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed theirs at the beginning 



