128 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



Of the round-headed dicotyledonous trees in 

 the park the most influential are the black and 

 goldcup oaks. They occur in some parts of the 

 main forest belt, scattered among the big pines 

 like a heavier chaparral, but form extensive 

 groves and reach perfect development only in 

 the Yosemite valleys and flats of the main 

 canons. The California black oak (Quereus 

 Californica) is one of the largest and most 

 beautiful of the Western oaks, attaining under fa- 

 vorable conditions a height of sixty to a hundred 

 feet, with a trunk three to seven feet in diameter, 

 wide-spreading picturesque branches, and smooth 

 lively green f oliage handsomely scalloped, purple 

 in the spring, yellow and red in autumn. It 

 grows best in sunny open groves on ground cov- 

 ered with ferns, chokecherry, brier rose, rubus, 

 mints, goldenrods, etc. Few, if any, of the fa- 

 mous oak groves of Europe, however extensive, 

 surpass these in the size and strength and bright, 

 airy beauty of the trees, the color and fragrance 

 of the vegetation beneath them, the quality of 

 the light that fills their leafy arches, and in the 

 grandeur of the surrounding scenery. The fin- 

 est grove in the park is in one of the little Yo- 

 semite valleys of the Tuolumne Canon, a few 

 miles above Hetch-Hetchy. 



The mountain live-oak, or goldcup oak (Quer- 

 eus chrysolepis), forms extensive groves on 

 earthquake and avalanche taluses and terraces 



