90 FOREST TREKS OF CALIFORNIA. 



dens, and for the most varied and useful culture. Few sug- 

 gestive allusions must suffice, as they are deemed more apro- 

 pos to a general treatise than to any one sylvan object; we 

 therefore forbear the thousand local examples that could be 

 cited in proof or illustration from Georgia, Alabama, Texas, 

 California, and all virgin soils, with various reasons that 

 might be given at length. 



This Pacific Post Oak reminds us most of the best types of 

 the Eastern Atlantic Post Oak (Q. obtusiloba). More even 

 than the Blue Douglas White Oak (Q. Douglasii), or any 

 other on the Pacific Coast. 



This great arborescent dome, ninety to one hundred feet 

 high, is convoluted into a magnificently spreading top 

 scarcely less grand, if not so graceful, as its pendent rival. 

 The trunk, five to eight feet through, has the bark finely 

 chinked, and frequently transversely cuboid-cracked, in 

 hotter localities. Indeed, there is nothing at all meagre in the 

 Northern, Oregon, or best California forms. The expression 

 and general bearing of the tree may be said to be manly, free, 

 open, and generous-like. True, many of ours are less im- 

 posing, being commonly of lower stature, and more disposed 

 to spread abroad. The leaves are large, broader at the end, or 

 reverse egg-form in general outline, but deeply bayed, some- 

 times cleft-like bayed, never bluish gray beneath, like Q. 

 lobata, but the under side, leaf stem, young branches, and 

 long sharp-pointed Winter buds are all clothed with a dense 

 dingy brownish or dirty yellowish starry down, scarcely a 

 little of it seen on the upper side of the leaf; unequal lobes, 

 mostly blunt and short, weakly prickly-pointed ; slender 

 tags, slightly soft-hairy ; barrel-shaped acorns, in some forms 

 more oblong, often in verj 7 shallow cups set close down on 

 the twigs; scales of the cup egg-form at base, with elongated 

 tips, soft-hairy, dense, close pressed ; the color of the acorn 

 light yellowish. This Garryan Oak can always be readily 

 distinguished by its rather large, variously, but commonly 

 deeply lobed, thick leathery leaves, and very short fuzzy, 

 downy coating beneath, and by its large — one fourth inch 

 long, or so — sharp woolly Winter buds. As Dr. Englemann 

 properly remarks, one form of Q. Breiveri much resembles this 

 Highland White Oak, but the strong point of distinction 

 most worthy of note is omitted in the description, viz: the 

 acorns of Brewer's Oak, one to seven spicate, or set up on a 

 single stem from one half to two inches long. This feature 

 is best observed in the young state. 



The wood is excellent timber, valuable for ship-building, 

 wagon work, and for a vast variety of useful purposes. The 

 northern forms, and those not too much exposed in dry and 

 burning localities, yield the best timber in size and quality; 

 have darker colored acorns and more elongated, egg-form, or 



