10 FOREST TREKS OF CALIFORNIA. 



SATIN-TASSEL TREE. 



Garrya elliptica.) 



"The mind — that ocean where each kind 

 Doth straight its own resemblance find." — Marvel. 



A LARGE evergreen shrub or tree ; eight to fifteen or 

 /A twenty feet high, three inches to a foot or more in diam- 

 eter; the most notable for size lately grew near San 

 Francisco, at the San Bruno Mountains, having five principal 

 branches, each five to six inches in diameter from a short 

 main body about one and a half feet in diameter — surpassing 

 any oak trees of the vicinity. This tree, indeed, bears some 

 casual resemblance to the Field Live Oak (2. agrifolia); but 

 the Satin-tassel tree has opposite entire leaves, i. e. without 

 teeth, or lobes; on the contrary, most oaks have saw-teeth, 

 frequently more or less deeply cleft or bayed leaves — always 

 alternate : this has the twigs also somewhat four-angled. Of 

 course, if the fruit of the female tree is observed, it is found 

 in clusters of tiny little grapy bunches of purple bladdery- 

 like berries, more or less silky, which stain your fingers pur- 

 ple on pinching them, even though dry and crispy-skinned 

 outside — then to you, this tree is no longer doubtful : and as 

 the fasicles of stiff tags — one to three inches long — fruits, or 

 relics of some one remain on all the year round, they never 

 lack a present manifest witness of their identity. The leaves 

 of both male and female trees are alike elliptical, base 

 rounded, mostly sharp pointed : margins wavy-bent, dark 

 green and smooth above: whitish, with short wool beneath, 

 one and a half to two inches long, about an inch or so broad ; 

 nevertheless many details must needs be omitted. So only, 

 the aided and quickened eye of the observer, seize some 

 relatively strong points that distinguish them and pass on. 

 Confronted with the masculine tree, which promptly steps 

 to the front rank of sylvan beauty, when in Winter or early 

 Spring his partner's modesty makes but humble display; 

 behold the long satiny tags, five to eight inches in length, pen- 

 dant in parallel plumb lines on the tranquil air of calm days, 

 or early dawn, like little lambs tails on the lawn : air of the 

 honest, and the upright, e'en to the last jot ; in perfect keep- 

 ing with rectitude to the extremest frankness and candor of 

 innocence; in a word, these tags, or catkins, are the most 

 sensitive, softest, and most flexile satiny pearls, strung with 

 living lines, ever hung on emerald mantle. From out the 

 vast empyrean of love, significance to landscape art, to 



