on MISC, CIRCULAR 31, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
berry is about a third of an inch through and is rough like an orange, 
not smooth and glossy like the leaves ‘of the tree or the berry of the 
California holly. 
THE CALIFORNIA WALNUT . 
The joy of the early comers to California in the fifties upon find- 
ing walnuts growing along the creeks, from the lower Sacramento 
clear south, soon gave way to disgust as the nut meats were found to 
be meager and the trees so small and limby as to render the wood 
almost useless for cabinet work. To this day it is used in its native 
habitat, mainly as a soil holder or to furnish firewood, though 
nurserymen find that seedlings of the California walnut form the 
finest disease-resistant stock on which to graft the soft-shell English 
sorts. It grows along many streams 20 to 40 miles from the coast 
and occasionally occurs in the Sierra foothills. In the coast canyons— 
along Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County, for example—its rich 
oreen marks the course of the stream for long distances, the trees 
growing from 20 to 50 feet high. 
The leaves are what are called “ pinnate,” that is, they are formed, 
like those of ash and elder, of leaflets in pairs along ae central axis 
or leafstalk (the rachis), each leaflet looking like a complete leaf. 
The walnut leaves and the green bark of the small branchlets have 
a sharp pungent odor. The old bark of the main trunk is very dark 
and cut into deep ridges, while the newer bark of the main branches 
is gray. This characteristic bark aids one to identify the tree, al- 
though the little conspicuously raised, 3-lobed, shieldlike leaf scars 
on the younger twigs also help. 
THE CALIFORNIA SYCAMORE 
Along certain creeks in either coast or Sierra canyons, one finds 
the California sycamore (fig. 21), white barked and, except when 
growing in a deep canyon, © sprawling lazily over the landscape. 
The wood is rather brittle and under weight of leaves or in heavy 
storms, branches break off, leaving the sturdy trunk to send out 
new sprouts. Then in the spring, on these new shoots and the 
branches that did not break, come the large leaves suggestive of 
grape leaves, only more deeply cut. A fungous growth “promptly 
attacks these first leaves, killing almost every one and forcing a 
second leaf crop. This forms a good shade, not too heavy, the joy 
of the camper because not as cold as a denser shade and yet not hot 
like the open. Children, too, love the syeamore—* dandy climbers,” 
as they call them. The bloom is different from that of any other 
tree, being an open cluster of three or more balls about three- 
quarters of an inch in diameter. 
THE OREGON ASH 
There is just one timber ash in California, commonly known as the 
Oregon ash, though found from Puget Sound to San Bernardino, in 
both Coast Range and western Sierra canyons, along streams, and 
in the open. The leaves are compound, with five to seven yellow- 
green leaflets, fuzzy underneath. The two sorts of bloom (male and 
