HIGHLAND LIVE OAK. 135 



states of growth, yet, in this Highland Live Oak, always 

 in a more prominent degree are they roughened and pitted, 

 as it were, with this fine net-work. By this more dis- 

 tinctive and manifest texture of the leal" then, is the High- 

 land ( Wislizeni) Live Oak discriminated from Field, Canon, 

 Evergreen, White, and all other Live Oaks, so far as known ; 

 even wdiere the casual forms are exactly alike. If any relia- 

 ble measurements could be made, we should say the leaves 

 were one to three inches long, and about half as wide, rarely 

 less, save in the shrubby forms, however, extreme instances 

 do occur where, in full grown trees, they are reduced to one 

 quarter of an inch; or again, on the same tree, found four 

 inches long by three wide, with every other form known to 

 the querky gamut. The male tags starry-hairy; stamens, 

 five to seven; anthers not cusp-pointed, as a rule; female 

 styles, two to four or more, and long, as in the Black Oaks, 

 to which section this belongs; acorns ovoid, long, acute, on 

 short stems, mostly maturing in pairs the second year after 

 setting, or rarely, one to five on a single stout stalk (peduncle), 

 two or three of which mature, the others seldom attain to 

 full size, one to one and a half inches long, one third to one 

 half immersed in the cup, nut mealy at the sharpened 

 top, to which the long recurve styles are still attached ; 

 indeed the length of these styles alone distinguishes it from 

 the somewhat similar Canon Live Oak. The cup scales are 

 not very sharply lance-pointed, almost smooth, the margin 

 slightly eye-lashed, flat and membraneous, rarely in some 

 trees thickened or knobbed at the extreme base of the cup; 

 color chestnut brown; both inside the cup and inside of the 

 shell of the acorn soft velvety wooly. 



These impassive oaks with their deep, dark, almost black- 

 green pall of solemn foliage, as it were, night's sullen noon- 

 shadows oversighted and left lonely on the landscape, would 

 be too sombre if in extensive groves, even a minor song of 

 sadness, if in any considerable groups; but as they are 

 naturally and sparsely distributed here and there over the 

 foothills and highlands, the effect is one of commanding 

 dignity — forms the cleanest cut to the very verge of prudish 

 precision — most distinctly defined against land or sky, or 

 mid diffusive haze; and oft' the heated daze that shimmers 

 the landscape of a long hot and dry season, far and near 

 from lowdand level to highland hill-top — then are these oaken 

 bowers refreshing as the great shadowing rocks of a weary 

 land; nor are they less sheltering at all seasons. We have 

 seen some fine trees sixty to seventy-five feet high, with cor- 

 responding proportions, and spread hanging over homes and 

 out-houses prove famous* wind-breaks; arms akimbo, securely 

 indifferent to the strongest blasts of the fiercest storms, even 

 an ordinary whirlwind may wring no branch from his 



