86 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



are large, like the chestnut, two to five inches long, one to 

 two broad, leathery, oblong-oval, lance-pointed, rather ab- 

 ruptly acute, or the smaller forms somewhat sharper pointed, 

 base more or less blunt, feathery, veins parallel, margins 

 saw-toothed, rarely altogether entire, save at the base, edges 

 slightly turned back, underneath remaining more or less 

 whitish, and at length tawny-woolly, like the twigs and leaf- 

 stems, although above becoming nearly naked and smooth. 

 This close-set ample foliage so abounds as to render the shade 

 the densest of all oaken shades, and yet airy withal ; this is 

 owing, as just suggested, to the rectangular level spread of 

 its numerous limbs and leaves; this peculiar disposition of 

 branch and spray also gives it a seeming openness and free- 

 dom, not altogether warranted by the very short, stout, and 

 almost rigid leaf-stem and the nearly impassive blade. The 

 color of the foliage of this tan-bark Chestnut Oak is rather 

 a pale, quiet, subdued green; the conspicuous young twigs 

 and' leaves first appear as if clad in a cloak of the finest 

 lamb's-wool imaginable. The illusive appearance is like 

 that of beholding a large tree in bloom ; the real blooms, 

 however, are like those of a chestnut, i. e., in long clustered 

 erect aments, or tags, of a creamy white color, densely stud- 

 ded with flowers, myriads of long stamen threads standing- 

 out all around like fairy pins stuck in the tag tails. Acorns, 

 one to three or more together, set just below these bundles of 

 tags, ripening the next year thereafter ; the cup is often some- 

 what hemispheric, or flatfish, very shallow, and wheel- 

 shaped; scales uniformly loose, rounded coarse-thread-like 

 tips, weakly curved or often bent back, soft and velvety, in 

 short, mossy; the acorn-nut large, oblong-cylindroid, or re- 

 motely egg-form, abruptly or broadly pointed, satiny outside 

 and inside of the horny shell, and also inside the mossy cup; 

 color umber, or light brown, a biennial oak, w T ith the clus- 

 tered fruit on short stems. 



As this oak largely marshals among redwoods, cypresses, 

 spruces, and firs, it evidently delights in humid half shady 

 woods and fog-bound coasts; but the finest types we have 

 ever seen are along a region from fifty to one hundred 

 miles or more north of San Francisco, in that coast 

 belt where the fog line vanishes as it greets the dry air of 

 the interior valleys, as e. g., Russian River Valley, and the 

 Sacramento north. Nevertheless it migrates far away from 

 fogs, and even occasionally ascends the Sierras to about 

 three thousand five hundred feet altitude, and extends in- 

 land to Mount Shasta and the vicinity of Yosemite Valley, 

 here they seldom exceed a foot or two in diameter, are 

 oftener even only tiny fruit-bearing bushes. The bark, 

 though not altogether smooth, is rather even, and lighter 

 colored than the chestnut, or grayish-brown, the sharp and 



