CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK 



(Quercus Densiflora) 



BOTANISTS dispute the right of this tree to the name of oak, and 

 some of them refuse to call it an oak. It is admitted that it possesses 

 characters not found in any other oak, but these are important to the 

 botanist only, while laymen have never considered the tree anything but 

 an oak. It has been variously called tanbark oak, chestnut oak, Cali- 

 fornia chestnut oak, live oak, and peach oak. The trunk, branches, 

 and foliage look much like chestnut. The leaf is like the chestnut's, but 

 it is evergreen. There are three or four crops on the tree at one time, 

 and none fall until they are three or four years old. Young leaves are 

 remarkably woolly, but late in then- first summer they get rid of most 

 of the fuzz, and become thick in texture. 



Tanbark oaks are of all sizes, from mere shrubs on high mountains 

 in the northern Sierra Nevadas to fine and symmetrical timber in the 

 damp climate of the fog belt between San Francisco and the Oregon line. 

 The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with 

 diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than 

 over two feet in diameter. 



The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and 

 runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada 

 mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the 

 Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic 

 conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby, 

 often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where 

 fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp. 

 It sometimes associates with Douglas fir, and at other times with 

 California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower 

 branches and develops a long, dean trunk ; but in open ground it keeps its 

 limbs until late in life. 



This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast, 

 and up to the present it has been procurable in large quantities. The 

 annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price 

 than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other 

 adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much 

 importance. Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the 

 stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruc- 

 tion of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred 

 with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark 

 oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousands 



313 



