Leaves lanceolate or oblong-ovate, gradually narrowed at the ends or sometimes abruptly contracted at apex into a short broad point, entire with slightly thickened revolute margins, when they unfold thin, coated below with golden yellow persistent scales and above with scattered white scales, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green and lustrous above, 2′—6′ long, ½′ to nearly 2′ wide, with a stout midrib raised and rounded on the upper side; turning yellow at maturity and falling gradually at the end of their second or in their third year; petioles ¼′—⅓′ in length; stipules ovate, rounded or acute at apex, brown and scarious, puberulous, ¼′—⅓′ long. Flowers appearing irregularly from June until February in the axils of broadly ovate apiculate pubescent bracts on staminate and androgynous scurfy stout-stemmed aments 2′—2½′ long and crowded at the ends of the branches; calyx of the staminate flower coated on the outer surface with hoary tomentum, divided into broadly ovate rounded lobes much shorter than the slender stamens; calyx of the pistillate flower oblong-campanulate, free from the ovary, clothed with hoary tomentum, divided at apex into short rounded lobes, rather shorter than the minute abortive stamens; anthers red; ovary conic, hirsute, with elongated slightly spreading thick pale stigmas. Fruit ripening at the end of the second season, involucre globose, dehiscent, irregularly 4-valved, often slightly shorter than the nuts, sessile, solitary, or clustered, tomentose and covered on the outer surface by long stout or slender rigid spines, 1′—1½′ in diameter, containing 1 or occasionally 2 nuts; nuts broadly ovoid, acute, obtusely 3-angled, light yellow-brown and lustrous; seeds dark purple-red, sweet and edible.
A tree, 50°—100° high, with a massive trunk 3°—6° in diameter, frequently free of branches for 50°, stout spreading branches forming a broad compact round-topped or conic head, and rigid branchlets coated when they first appear with bright golden-yellow scurfy scales, dark reddish brown and slightly scurfy during their first winter, and gradually growing darker in their second season; often much smaller and sometimes reduced to a shrub, 2°—12° high (var. minor A. De Candolle). Winter-buds fully grown at mid-summer, usually crowded near the end of the branch, ovoid or subglobose, with broadly ovate apiculate thin and papery light brown scales slightly puberulous on the back, ciliate on the scarious often reflexed margins, the terminal about ¼′ long and broad and rather larger than the often stipitate axillary buds. Bark 1′—2′ thick and deeply divided into rounded ridges 2′—3′ wide, broken into thick plate-like scales, dark red-brown on the surface and bright red internally. Wood light, soft, close-grained, not strong, light brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood of 50—60 layers of annual growth; occasionally used in the manufacture of ploughs and other agricultural implements.
Distribution. Skamania County, Washington, valley of the lower Columbia River, Oregon, southward along the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains, and in California along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada and through the coast ranges to the elevated valleys of the San Jacinto Mountains, sometimes ascending to altitudes of 4000° above the sea; of its largest size in the humid coast valleys of northern California.
Occasionally cultivated in the gardens of temperate Europe.
4. LITHOCARPUS Bl.
Pasania Örst.
Trees, with astringent properties, pubescence of fascicled hairs, deeply furrowed scaly bark, hard close-grained brittle wood, stout branchlets, and winter-buds covered by few erect or spreading foliaceous scales. Leaves convolute in the bud, petiolate, persistent, entire or dentate, with a stout midrib, primary veins running obliquely to the points of the teeth, or on entire leaves forked and united near the margins, and reticulate veinlets; stipules oblong-obovate to linear-lanceolate, those of the upper leaves persistent and surrounding the buds during the winter. Flowers in erect unisexual and in bisexual tomentose aments from the axils of leaves of the year, from the inner scales of the terminal bud or from separate buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year; staminate in 3-flowered clusters in the axils of ovate rounded bracts, the lateral flowers subtended by similar but smaller bracts, each flower composed of a 5-lobed tomentose calyx, with nearly triangular acute lobes, 10 stamens, with slender elongated filaments and small oblong or emarginate anthers, and an acute abortive hairy ovary; pistillate scattered at the base of the upper aments below the staminate flowers, solitary in the axils of acute bracts, furnished with minute lateral bractlets, and composed of a 6-lobed ovoid calyx, with rounded lobes, inclosed in the tomentose involucral scales, 6 stamens, with abortive anthers, an ovoid-oblong 3-celled ovary, 3 elongated spreading light green styles thickened and stigmatic at apex, and 2 anatropous ovules in each cell. Fruit an oval or ovoid nut maturing at the end of the second season, 1-seeded by abortion, surrounded at base by the accrescent woody cupular involucre of the flower, marked by a large pale circular basal scar, the thick shell tomentose on the inner surface. Seed red-brown, filling the cavity of the nut, bearing at apex the abortive ovules; cotyledons thick and fleshy, yellow and bitter.
Lithocarpus is intermediate between the Oaks and the Chestnuts, and, with the exception of one California species, is confined to southeastern Asia, where it is distributed with many species from southern Japan and southern China through the Malay Peninsula to the Indian Archipelago.
Lithocarpus from λίθος and καρπός, in allusion to the character of the fruit.