'M REST TREKS OF CALIFORNIA 



GOLDEN-LEAF CHESTNUT. 



■ Castanopsis chrysophylla. 



•• Timber of chestnut and elm and oak. 



And scattered here and there with th 

 The knarred and crooked cedar kna - 



— •• Building the Ship," of Longfellow. 



IX any other country than California, the truly colossal 

 character of the best types of this great evergreen tree 

 would excite astonishment. One hundred to one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet or more high, five to nearly ten feet in 

 diameter, forty to eighty feet clean trim trunk, and very lit- 

 tle taper — for at length in age it becomes massive and tow- 

 ering, like sequoian cypresses — bark more brown, with 

 scarcely a visible tinge of gray, the chestnut-creased channels 

 of it sweeping down like a vast fluted Corinthian column, 

 with only enough water-line divergence to break monotony, 

 bar out the formal and bring to its aid the varied and cheer- 

 ful. The tune of the tree in general is always dignified and 

 elegant, or grave and venerable — crowned with a wealth of 

 noble, laurel-like leaves, top coned, oblong, or domed in an 

 ever living, rich and royal mantle, golden-lined. This tree 

 may yet. ere long, meet the eye of art — pen or pencil, rural 

 or arboreal, for there are many gems of the genus homo abroad 

 in this land, it is a pleasure still to know, who have the 

 harp-strings of their hearts already attuned to joyous im- 

 press, when Sylva blandishes her beauty before the foot- 

 lights of nature's grand oratorio, anon chaunting worthy 

 songs to their sense. With such congenial companions of 

 the wood, let us wander and view together this lofty Chest- 

 nut o'er the landscape gleaming! May it be a morning 

 without clouds, when the early sun. from his golden urn 

 orients the east. and. rising from his rosy pillow, greets a 

 radiant morn. For where else in the wide world can we 

 inquire so well how the noble Golden-Leaf Chestnut returns 

 the glad salutation from mountain or hill -top, on landscape 

 or lawn, as of the vivid and veritable witnesses of that thrice 

 sacred Delphic shrine of one's own experiences. 



As the suggestive specific name implies, it is derived from 

 the common observation that this foliage, when stirred by 

 the zephyr, rolled by rising winds, or lifted by the stronger 

 breeze, turns the golden under surface to the sun. reflecting 

 a softened sheen of rich orange-yellow, strikingly contrast- 

 ing the general' ivy-green, and lighting up the face of its 



