262 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



variously contorted erect or pendant branches, and slender branchlets coated at first 

 with short silky canescent pubescence, ashy gray, light reddish brown, or pale orange- 

 brown and slightly pubescent in their first winter, becoming glabrous And lighter 

 colored during their second year. Winter-buds ovate, acute, usually about ' long, 

 with orange-brown pubescent scales scarious and frequently ciliate on the margins. 

 Bark '-!' thick and covered by small loosely appressed light gray scales slightly 

 tinged with orange or brown, becoming at the base of old trees frequently 5'-6' thick 

 and divided by longitudinal fissures into broad flat ridges, broken horizontally into 

 short plates. Wood hard, fine-grained, brittle, light brown, with thin lighter colored 

 sap wood; used only for fuel. 



Distribution. Valleys of western California between the Sierra Nevada and the 

 ocean from the upper Sacramento to the Tejon Pass; most abundant and forming 

 open groves in the central valleys of the state. 



27. Quercus Garryana, Hook. White Oak. 



Leaves obovate to oblong, pointed at the apex, wedge-shaped or rounded at the 

 base, coarsely pinnatifid-lobed, with slightly thickened revolute margins, coated at 

 first with soft pale lustrous pubescence, at maturity thick and firm or subcoriaceous, 



dark green and lustrous and glabrous above, light green or orange-brown and pubes- 

 cent or glabrate on the lower surface, 4'-6' long, 2'-5' broad, with stout yellow mid- 

 ribs, and conspicuous primary veins spreading at right angles, or gradually diverging 

 from the midrib and running to the points of the lobes, sometimes turning bright 

 scarlet in the autumn; their petioles stout, pubescent, \'-V long. Flowers: stami- 

 nate in hirsute aments; calyx glabrous, laciniately cut into ovate acute slightly ciliate 

 or linear-lanceolate much elongated segments; pistillate sessile and coated with pale 

 tomentum. Fruit sessile or short-stalked; acorn oval to slightly obovate and obtuse, 

 I'-l^' long and ^'-1' broad, inclosed at the base in a shallow cup-shaped or slightly 

 turbinate cup puberulous and light brown on the inner surface, pubescent or tomen- 

 tose on the cuter, and covered by ovate acute scales with pointed and often elon- 

 gated tips, thin, free, or sometimes thickened and more or less united toward the 

 base of the cup, decreasing from below upward. 



A tree, usually 60-70 or sometimes nearly 100 high, with a trunk 2-3 in 



