258 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



turn of fulvous articulate hairs soon deciduous from the upper and more gradually 

 from the lower surface, at maturity thick and coriaceous, bright yellow-green and 

 glabrous above, more or less fulvous-tomentose below during their first year, ulti- 

 mately becoming glabrate and bluish white, l'-4' long, ^'-2' wide, with thickened 

 revolute margins; deciduous during their third and fourth years; their petioles 

 slender, yellow, rarely % long. Flowers: staminate in slender tomentose aments 

 2'^4' long; calyx light yellow, pubescent, divided usually into 5-7 broadly ovate 

 acute ciliate lobes often tinged with red above the middle; pistillate sessile or 

 subsessile or rarely in short few-flowered spikes, their broadly ovate involucral 

 scales coated with fulvous tornentum; stigmas bright red. Fruit usually solitary, 

 sessile or short-stalked; acorn oval or ovate, acute or rounded at the full or narrow 

 slightly puberulous apex, light chestnut-brown, ^'-2' long and about as broad, the 

 shell lined with a thin coat of loose tomentum, with abortive ovules scattered irregu- 

 larly over the side of the seed, inclosed only at the base in a thin hemispherical or 

 in a thick turbiuate broad-rimmed cup pale green or dark reddish brown within, 

 and covered by small triangular closely appressed scales, with short free tips clothed 

 with hoary pubescence, or often hidden in a dense coat of fulvous tomentum. 



A tree, usually not more than 40-50 high, with a short trunk 3-5 in diameter, 

 dividing into great horizontal limbs sometimes forming a head 150 across, and 

 slender rigid or flexible branchlets coated at first with thick fulvous tomentum, 

 becoming during their first winter dark brown somewhat tinged with red, tomentose, 

 pubescent', or glabrous, and ultimately light brown or ashy gray; occasionally in 

 sheltered canons producing trunks 8-9 in diameter; on exposed mountain sides 

 forming dense thickets 15-20 high; and on high subalpine slopes a low prostrate 

 shrub (var. vacdnifolia, Engelm.), with small leaves and acorns and thin shallow 

 cups covered by thin red-brown slightly pubescent scales. Winter-buds broadly 

 ovate or oval, acute, about ^' long, with closely imbricated light chestnut-brown 

 usually puberulous scales. Bark f '-!' thick, light or dark gray-brown tinged with 

 red, and covered by small closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, very strong, 

 hard, tough, close-grained, light brown, with thick darker colored sap wood; used in 

 the manufacture of agricultural implements and wagons. 



Distribution. Southern Oregon, along the California coast ranges and the western 

 slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains, and 

 on Mt. San Pedro Martir in Lower California; on the high summits of the moun- 

 tain ranges of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Sonora, and here 

 usually small or shrubby; of its largest size in the canons of the coast ranges of 

 central California and on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, ascending to eleva- 

 tions of 8000-9000 above the sea; in its Alpine shrubby form covering great areas 

 with dense thickets; near the southern boundary of California usually shrubby, with 

 rigid branches, rigid coriaceous oblong or semiorbicular spinose-dentate leaves, sub- 

 sessile or pedunculate fruit, with ovate acute acorns 1-1^' long, their shell lined 

 with thick or thin pale tomentum, and purple cotyledons (Q. chrysolepis, var. Pal- 

 meri, Engelm.). 



24. Quercus tomentella, Engelm. 



Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, sometimes cuspidate or occasionally rounded at 

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

 the base, remotely crenate-dentate, with small remote spreading callous tipped teeth, 

 or entire, when they unfold light green tinged with red, covered above with scat- 



