134 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



little sap, hard and prodigiously heavy, of exceeding slow 

 growth, trees of the largest size being about one thousand 

 years old, perfectly sound, without infirmity, journeying on 

 with eons unnumbered crowning their venerable brow, and 

 others yet in store; still the beautiful tressed seeds come and 

 go as of yore, prettily spiraling as in juvenile grace, merrily 

 trilling to the breeze, silky softening into mellow haze her 

 curly head, lest the unbecoming twig seem too strict and 

 stiff, or formal and bare, to please the eye or satisfy the taste. 



HIGHLAND LIVE OAK. 



(Querelas Wislizeni.) 



"The green abode of life." 



THIS evergreen oak usually branches low, is rounded in 

 outline, or erect, spreading, with the magnificent top 

 rolling outwards; forty to seventy-five feet high, two to 

 six feet in diameter, and relatively of less horizontal spread- 

 ing habit than most other live oaks. Among the usual tor- 

 tuous limbs, no dead nor decaying branch or twig is easily 

 found, to such a remarkable extent does health and vigor 

 everywhere abound. It is this very clean and neat expansion 

 of prosperous growth above, black bark of the body below, 

 and blackish bark of intermingled branches, together with 

 that darkest, nay, almost black-green densely shadowing 

 foliage, which so much tends to give an impressive and 

 decided character to this tree. The bark on young trees, and 

 thriftier branches of older ones, is more smoothish or even, 

 a shade or two lighter, but always dark, shading to livid. 

 This rough, black, or rarely gray-mixed body is somewhat 

 less chinky than most oaks. Leaves thick, leathery, and 

 rigid (rarely thinner), shining on both surfaces, the upper a 

 vigorous dark green, lower, a shade lighter, inclining to yel- 

 lowish-green ; leaf stems slender, but not weak, usually less 

 than one half inch long, blade flat, except in the young state, 

 and prickly-toothed then, though mostly entire in age, per- 

 chance closely sharp-toothed on the same twig, egg-shape or 

 oblong egg-form, sharp and awl-pointed, base obtuse or from 

 blunt, rarely slightly heart-form or quite oval, or again, 

 broad lance-like, seldom or never with jointed hairs in any 

 stage, very short, starry, hairy, chiefly above, finely netted 

 with translucent veins, nearly alike above and below — not 

 that other oak leaves are not also more or less so, in some 





