FAGACE.E 237 



A tree, usually 70-80 but sometimes 150 high, with a trunk I --* in diameter, stout 

 branches ascending in the forest and forming a narrow spire-like head, or in open positions 

 spreading horizontally and forming a broad dense symmetrical round-topped crown, and 

 branchlets coated at first with a thick fulvous tomentum of fascicled hairs often persistent 

 until the second or third year, becoming dark reddish brown and frequently covered with 

 a glaucous bloom; or sometimes reduced to a shrub, with slender stems only a few feet 

 high (var. montana Rehdr.). Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, \'-\ r long, often surrounded by 

 the persistent stipules of the upper leaves, with tomentose loosely imbricated scales, those 

 of the outer ranks linear-lanceolate, increasing in width toward the interior of the bud, 

 those of the inner ranks ovate or obovate and rounded at apex. Bark f '-14' thick. 



Fig. 220 



deeply divided by narrow fissures into broad rounded ridges broken into nearly square 

 plates covered by closely appressed light red-brown scales. Wood hard, strong, close- 

 grained, brittle, reddish brown, with thick darker brown sap wood; largely used as fuel. 

 The bark is exceedingly rich in tannin and is largely used for tanning leather. 



Distribution. Valley of the TJmpqua River, Oregon, southward through the coast 

 ranges to the Santa Inez Mountains, California, and along the western slope of the Sierra 

 Nevada up to elevations of 4000 above the sea to Mariposa County; very abundant in 

 the humid coast region north of San Francisco Bay and on the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia 

 Mountains, and of its largest size in the Redwood forest of Napa and Mendocino Counties; 

 southward and on the Sierras less abundant and of smaller size; the form lanceolata in 

 southern Oregon and in Del Norte and Mendocino Counties, California; the var. montana 

 at high altitudes on the Siskiyou Mountains, in the region of Mount Shasta and on the 

 northern Sierra Nevada. 



5. QUERCUSL. Oak. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent properties, pubescence of fascicled hairs, scaly or dark and 

 furrowed bark, hard and close-grained or porous brittle wood, slender branchlets marked 

 by pale lenticels and more or less prominently 5-angled. Winter-buds clustered at the 

 ends of the branchlets, with numerous membranaceous chestnut-brown slightly accres- 

 cent caducous scales closely imbricated in 5 ranks, in falling marking the base of the 

 branchlet with ring-like scars. Leaves 5-ranked, lobed, dentate or entire, often variable on 

 the same branch, membranaceous or coriaceous, the primary veins prominent and extend- 

 ing to the margins or united within them and connected by more or less reticulate vein- 

 lets, deciduous in the autumn or persistent until spring or until their third or fourth year; 



