TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



lustrous, dark yellow-green and glabrous or rarely pubescent above, light yellow-green or 

 brownish and glabrous or pubescent, or occasionally hoary-tomentose below, 3'-6' long, 2'-4' 

 wide; turning yellower brown in the autumn before falling; petioles slender, yellow 7 , l'-2' 

 in length. Flowers: staminate in hairy aments 4 '-5' long; calyx pubescent, divided into 

 4 or 5 ovate acute segments shorter than the stamens; anthers bright red; pistillate on 

 short tomentose peduncles, their involucral scales ovate, coated like the acute calyx-lobes 

 with pale tomentum; stigmas dark red. Fruit short-stalked, solitary or clustered; nut oblong, 

 ellipsoidal or obovoid, broad and rounded at base, full and rounded or gradually narrowed 

 and acute at the puberulous apex, l'-l' long, about f ' broad, light chestnut-brown, often 

 striate, inclosed for one fourth to two thirds of its length in the deep cup-shaped cup 

 light brown on the inner surface, and covered by thin ovate-lanceolate lustrous light chest- 

 nut brown scales, sometimes rounded and thickened on the back toward the base of the cup, 

 their tips elongated, thin and erose on the margins, often forming a narrow fringe-like bor- 

 der to the rim of the cup. 



A tree, occasionally 100 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diameter, stout spreading branches 

 forming an open round-topped head, and branchlets coated at first with thick hoary ca- 



Fig. 231 



ducous tomentum, bright red or brown tinged with red, and usually glabrous or pubescent 

 or puberulous during their first winter, becoming dark red-brown in their second year; fre- 

 quently much smaller and at high elevations a small shrub (f. cibata Jeps.)- Winter-buds 

 ovoid, gradually narrowed and acute at apex, about i' long, with closely imbricated pale 

 chestnut-brown scales ciliate on the thin scarious margins and pubescent toward the point 

 of the bud. Bark of young stems and branches smooth, light brown, becoming on old 

 trunks l'-l?' thick, dark brown slightly tinged with red or nearly black, divided into 

 broad ridges at the base of old trees and broken above into thick irregular oblong plates 

 covered by minute closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, very brittle, bright 

 red, with thin lighter colored sapwood; occasionally used as fuel. 



Distribution. Valleys and mountain slopes; basin of the Mackenzie River in western 

 Oregon, southward over the California coast ranges, and along the western slopes of the 

 Sierra Nevada up to altitudes of 6500 to the Cuyamaca Mountains near the southern 

 boundary of California; extending across the Sierra Nevada to the foothills of Owens valley 

 (Jepsori) in eastern California; rare in the immediate neighborhood of the coast; the largest 

 and most abundant Oak-tree of the valleys of southwestern Oregon and of the Sierra 

 Nevada, sometimes forming groves of considerable extent in coniferous forests; of its 

 largest size at altitudes of about 6000 above the sea. 



