MOUNTAIN MAHOGANY.
Cercocarpus parvifolius, Nutt. Rose Family.
Shrubs two to twenty feet high; branching from a thick base. Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; cuneate; serrate across the summit; more or less silky above; densely hoary-tomentose beneath; six to eighteen lines long. Flowers.—Mostly solitary; axillary. Calyx.—Narrowly tubular, with a deciduous campanulate five-lobed limb. Petals.—None. Stamens.—Fifteen to twenty-five; on the calyx. Ovary.—One-(rarely two-) celled. Style simple. Fruit.—An akene with a silky tail, at length becoming three or four inches long. Hab.—The Coast Ranges from Lake County to Southern California.
The mountain mahogany is a common shrub upon the interior hills of the Coast Ranges; and when one has once made its acquaintance, it is always easily recognized by its wedge-shaped, dark-green leaves, prominently veined and notched at the summit. Its flowers, having no petals, are green and inconspicuous; but the long, solitary plumes of its little fruit are very noticeable and pretty. Its wood is the heaviest and hardest we have.
Mr. Greene says that its leafy twigs have a sweet, birchy flavor, rendering them excellent food for cattle in late summer.