FIELD-DAYS IN CALIFORNIA 



by curiosity, carried a twig back to the hotel. 

 There I showed it to a Santa Crucian, who 

 answered readily that it was tanbark oak. ** They 

 use the bark in the big tannery here," he said. 

 To speak frankly, I doubted his knowledge, the 

 texture of the leaves being so radically unlike 

 that of any Qiiercus leaf that I had ever seen. 



The next day, however, in the grove itself, I 

 found trees of a considerable size, and under 

 them picked up acorns and curiously feathered 

 acorn-cups ; and within twenty-four hours, by a 

 happy accident, my attention was directed to a 

 recent magazine article in which the tree was 

 described and its leaves and fruit figured. The 

 tree is not a Qiierciis^ it appears, but is of the 

 genus Pasania, its only surviving congeners (but 

 these number almost a hundred !) being found 

 in Siam and the neighboring islands ! A strange 

 oak it surely is, and a strange history it must 

 have had : an ancient genus, surviving from 

 geologic times, we are told, equally related to 

 Querciis and Castanea, to the oaks, that is, and 

 the chestnuts. And now, in these last days, with 

 all this ennobling family history behind it, it is 

 being cut down for the tanning of shoe-leather. 

 To such base uses do we come. 



On the floor of the grove were beautiful and 

 modest flowers : redwood oxalis, with its exquisite 

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