318 FOREST TREES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE. 



A srnooth-trunked tree from 50 to 75 feet high and from 1 to 2 feet in diam- 

 eter ; trees from 80 to 85 feet, or somewhat taller, and from 3 to 4 feet in 



Fig. 148. — Qucrcus dcnsi/Iora. 



diameter sometimes occur. Though much larger trees were probably once com- 

 mon, they are now rare. At high elevations it is a shrub under 10 feet in 



genus. It is a connecting link between the oaks and chestnuts. These minor differences 

 are these : Its male and female flowers are borne on new shoots of the year, rarely from 

 buds at the base of leaves of the previous year's growth ; the cylindrical male clusters 

 are thick and erect, instead of being thread-like, pendulous, and developed from buds on 

 year-old twigs, as in other oaks ; the female dowers are usually borne at the base of 

 the uppermost male flower clusters ; the male flowers are arranged 3 in a minute cluster, 

 many of these covering the erect flowering stems, instead of being solitary as in other 

 oaks. (The female flowers are, however, solitary, as in other oaks.) Upon these valid 

 botanical characters Oersted proposed, in 1866, that this tree be called Pasania densi- 

 ■flora. Since then, however, it has been maintained under the name Q. densiflora, given 

 to it by Hooker and Arnott in 1841. One eminent American tree botanist has recently 

 taken up Oersted's name. But granting the technical grounds are good for such a change, 

 it is preferable, in the writer's opinion, to still maintain this tree as a member of the 

 genus Quercus by slightly enlarging the definition of the genus. In all other outward 

 gross characters — foliage, fruit, wood, and habit — this tree is and always will be an oak 

 to the lumberman and to the practical forester. Precedents for continuing to regard 

 the tree as an oak are not wanting. Thus, box-elder (Negundo), though equally distinct 

 from the true maples, is retained in the genus 4.cer. 



