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TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



ground into many small wide-spreading branches, and conspicuously angled pale yellow- 

 green branchlets slightly pubescent when they first appear, soon becoming glabrous; more 

 often a tall or low shrub. Bark of the trunk thin, with a bright red-brown surface separat- 

 ing into thin narrow appressed scales. Wood close-grained, rather soft, light brown, with 

 thin darker colored sap wood. 



Distribution. Shady hillsides on the borders of the forest and often in the neighborhood 

 of streams; coast mountains of California from Mendocino Countv to the vallev of the San 



Luis Rey River, San Diego County; of its largest size northward, and in the Redwood-for- 

 ests of the Santa Cruz Mountains; southward often a low shrub, frequently flowering on the 

 wind-swept shores of the ocean when only l-2 high. 



3. Ceanothus spinosus Nutt. Lilac. 



Leaves elliptic to oblong, full and rounded, apiculate or often slightly emarginateor grad- 

 ually narrowed and pointed or rarely 3-lobed at apex, and rounded or cuneate at base, when 



Fig. 655 



they unfold villose-pubescent below r along the stout midrib and obscure primary veins, 

 soon glabrous, coriaceous, usually about 1' long and \' wide; petioles stout, \'-\' in length, 

 at first villose, becoming nearly glabrous; leaves on vigorous shoots sometimes ovate, con- 



