OAK FAMILY. 123 



The most characteristic tree on the floors of the Sacramento, San Joaquin 

 and Coast Range valleys, but not in valleys facing the sea. The round- 

 topped crown is often broader than high, its spreading branches finally ending 

 in long slender cord-like branchlets which sometimes sweep the ground (whence 

 ••Weeping Oak"). Called "White Oak" or "Water Oak" by settlers and 

 Roble by the Spanish-Californians. 



2. Q. garryana Dougl. OBEGON Oak. Round-headed tree 25 to 55 ft. 

 high, the trunk bark white, thin, superficially checked into small squarish 

 scales; leaves 3 to 4 (or 6) in. long, \y.* to 4C> in. wide, dark lustrous green 

 and nearly glabrous above, rusty or pale, finely pubescent and yellow-veined 

 beneath, leathery in texture and pinnately parted into 5 to 7 (rarely 9) lobes 

 with mostly deep and often acute sinuses; lobes entire or with 2 or 3 coarse 

 rounded unequal teeth; cup very shallow, 6 to 9 lines broad, with tuberculate 

 scales; nut bulging beyond the small cup, typically subglobose but varying to 

 obovoid or subcylindric, although always rounded at apex, % to 1 in. long, % 

 to % in. thick, its surface polished and shining. 



Chiefly in the higher mountains near the coast: Santa Cruz Mts.; Mt. Tamal- 

 pais; northward to Mendocino and Humboldt cos., and far northward to British 

 Columbia. Also called "Post Oak." 



3. Q. douglasiiH. & A. Blue Oak. Tree 20 to 60 ft. high, the white 

 trunk bark shallowly checked into small thin scales, this characteristic rough- 

 ness extending well out to the smaller branches; leaves minutely pubescent, 

 bluish green above, pale beneath, 1 to 3 in. long, y 2 to 3 in. wide, mostly ob- 

 long to obovate, entire, or coarsely and often unequally few-toothed, or 

 shallowly lobed; acorns ripe in first autumn; cup 4 to 6 lines broad, of less 

 diameter than the nut and very shallow, the scales developing small wart- 

 like processes; nut % to 1% in. long, 6 to 10 lines thick, dark or light brown, 

 oval in outline but variable, often much sw r ollen just below or at the middle 

 or only on one side, or again narrow and tapering to apex. 



Common on hot interior foothills, often the only tree where it grows, or 

 associated with Digger Pine or Interior Live Oak : Sierra Nevada foothills and 

 inner Coast Range, ranging west to the Napa Range, Walnut Creek and 

 Monterey Co. Called Mountain Oak and Iron Oak by settlers. 



4. Q. dumosa Nutt. Scrub Oak. Shrub 2 to 8 ft. high, with tough 

 rigid branches and branchlets; leaves typically oblong to elliptic or roundish, 

 entire or more commonly irregularly spinose-serrate, or sinuate-lobed with 

 sharply cut or angular sinuses, % to 1 in. long; cup shallowly or deeply 

 saucer-shaped to turbinate, 5 to 8 lines broad, 2 to 5 lines deep, often rusty, 

 the scales tuberculate, sometimes so regularly as to suggest a quilted cushion; 

 nut oval to cylindric, rounded or pointed at apex, % to 1% i n - long. 



Common chaparral shrub in the mountains of Southern California, ranging 

 northward through both the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada, more or less 

 abundant in the middle and southerly parts of those ranges, rarer in the 

 north (Vaca Mts.; Napa Range; Ukiah). Highly variable in leaf texture and 

 outline and in acorn character, both of cup and nut. (See chaparral in 

 index.) 



5. Q. durata Jepson. Leather Oak. Low spreading shrub with rigid 

 branches, 2 to 5 ft. high; younger branches and leaves densely tomentose; 

 leaves oval, dentate with prickly equal teeth, above convex, the margin more 

 or less revolute; cup bowl-shaped, 8 to 9 lines broad, 4 to 5 lines high, the 



