FAGACE^E 255 



distance from the sea, and on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada; very common as 

 a shrub in the canons of the desert slopes of the mountains of southern California; 

 near the coast and on the islands small and mostly shrubby. 



Quercus Morehus, Kell., a supposed hybrid between this species and Quercus Cali- 

 fornica, occurs in Lake County, California. 



21. Quercus myrtifolia, Willd. Scrub Oak. 



Leaves oval to oblong-obovate, acute and apiculate or broad and rounded at the 

 apex, gradually narrowed and wedge-shaped or broad and rounded or cordate at 

 the base, entire, with much thickened revolute sometimes undulate margins, or on 

 vigorous shoots sinuate-dentate and lobed above the middle, when they unfold, thin, 

 dark red, coated below and on the petioles with clammy rusty tomentum and covered 

 above with stellate pubescence, at maturity thick and coriaceous, lustrous, dark 

 green, glabrous, and conspicuously reticulate-venulose on the upper surface, paler, 

 yellow-green, or light orange-brown, glabrous or pubescent, on the lower surface, 

 with tufts of rusty hairs in the axils of the veins, ^'-2' long and \'-V wide, falling 

 gradually during their second year; their petioles stout, pubescent, yellow, rarely 



more than \' long. Flowers: staminate in hoary stellate pubescent aments !'-!' 

 long; calyx coated on the outer surface with rusty hairs and divided into 5 ovate 

 acute thin segments shorter than the 2 or 3 stamens; pistillate sessile or nearly 

 sessile, solitary or in pairs, their involucral scales tomentose and tinged with red. 

 Fruit solitary or in pairs, sessile or short-stalked; acorn subglobose or ovate, acute, 

 y_' long, dark brown, lustrous and often striate, puberulous at the apex, the shell 

 lined with a thick coat of rusty tomentum, inclosed for one fourth to one third its 

 length in a saucer-shaped or turbinate cup light brown and puberulous within, and 

 covered by closely imbricated broad ovate light brown pubescent scales ciliate on 

 the margins and rounded at their broad apex. 



A slender tree, rarely 20 high, with a trunk 4'-5' in diameter, with short spread- 

 ing branches and slender branchlets coated at first with a thick pale fulvous tomen- 

 tum of articulate hairs usually persistent during the summer, light brown more or 

 less tinged with red or dark gray, and pubescent or puberulous during their first 

 winter, becoming darker and glabrous in their second season; more often an intri- 



