A tree, usually not more than 40°—50° high, with a short trunk 3°—5° in diameter, dividing into great horizontal limbs sometimes forming a head 150° across, and slender rigid or flexible branchlets coated at first with thick fulvous tomentum, becoming during their first winter dark brown somewhat tinged with red, tomentose, pubescent, or glabrous, and ultimately light brown or ashy gray; occasionally in sheltered cañons producing trunks 8°—9° in diameter; on exposed mountain sides forming dense thickets 15°—20° high. Winter-buds broadly ovoid or oval, acute, about ⅛′ long, with closely imbricated light chestnut-brown usually puberulous scales. Bark ¾′—1½′ thick, light or dark gray-brown tinged with red, and covered by small closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, very strong, hard, tough, close-grained, light brown, with thick darker colored sapwood; used in the manufacture of agricultural implements and wagons.
Distribution. Southern Oregon, along the California coast ranges and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains; of its largest size in the cañons of the coast ranges of central California and on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada; ascending to altitudes of 8000°—9000° above the sea; near the southern boundary of California, on the mountains of northern Lower California and Sonora and in Arizona (Santa Rita and Huachuca Mountains, on Beaver Creek and in Copper Cañon near Camp Verde, and in Sycamore Cañon south of Flagstaff), usually shrubby, with rigid branches, rigid coriaceous oblong or semiorbicular spinose-dentate leaves, subsessile or pedunculate fruit, with ovoid acute nuts 1′—1½′ long, their shells lined with thick or thin pale tomentum, and purple cotyledons (var. Palmeri Engelm.—Quercus Wilcoxii Rydb.)
26. [Quercus tomentella] Engelm.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, sometimes cuspidate or occasionally rounded at apex, broad and rounded or gradually narrowed and abruptly cuneate at base, remotely crenate-dentate with small remote spreading callous tipped teeth, or entire, when they unfold light green tinged with red, covered above with scattered pale fascicled hairs and below and on the petioles with thick hoary tomentum, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark green, glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and covered with fascicled hairs on the lower surface, 2′—4′ long, 1′—2′ wide, with thickened strongly revolute margins, and a pubescent midrib; gradually deciduous during their third season; petioles stout, pubescent, about ½′ in length. Flowers: staminate in pubescent aments 2½′—14′ long, calyx light yellow, pubescent, divided into 5—7 ovate acute lobes; pistillate subsessile or in few-flowered spikes on short or elongated pubescent peduncles, their involucral scales like the calyx coated with fascicled hairs; stigmas red. Fruit subsessile or short-stalked; nut ovoid, broad at base, full and rounded at apex, about 1½′ long and ¾′ thick, inclosed only at the base in a cup-shaped shallow cup thickened below, light brown and pubescent on the inner surface, and covered by thin ovate acute scales, their free chestnut-brown tips more or less hidden in a thick coat of hoary tomentum.
A tree, 30°—40°, or occasionally 60° high, with a trunk 1°—2° in diameter, spreading branches forming a shapely round-topped head, and slender branchlets coated at first with hoary tomentum, becoming light brown tinged with red or orange color. Winter-buds ovoid, acute or obtuse, nearly ¼′ long, with many loosely imbricated light chestnut-brown scales more or less clothed with pale pubescence. Bark thin, reddish brown, broken into large closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, compact, pale yellow-brown, with lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Deep narrow cañons and high wind-swept slopes of Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Santa Catalina islands, California; on Guadalupe Island off the coast of Lower California.
27. [Quercus Emoryi] Torr. Black Oak.
Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute and mucronate at apex, cordate or rounded at the slightly narrowed base, entire or remotely repand-serrate with 1—5 pairs of acute rigid oblique teeth, when they unfold thin, light green more or less tinged with red and covered with silvery white tomentum, at maturity thick, rigid, coriaceous, dark green, very lustrous and glabrous or coated above with minute fascicled hairs, pale and glabrous or puberulous below, usually with 2 large tufts of white hairs at the base of the slender midrib, obscurely reticulate-venulose, 1′—2½′ long, ½′—1′ wide; falling gradually in April with the appearance of the new leaves; petioles stout, pubescent, about ¼′ in length. Flowers: staminate in hoary tomentose aments; calyx light yellow, hairy on the outer surface, divided into 5—7 ovate acute lobes; pistillate sessile or short-stalked, their involucral scales covered with hoary tomentum. Fruit ripening irregularly from June to September, sessile or short-stalked; nut oblong, oval, or ovate, narrowed at base, rounded at the narrow pilose apex, ½′—¾′ long, about ⅓′ thick, dull light green when fully grown, dark chestnut-brown or nearly black at maturity, with a thin shell lined with thick white tomentum, inclosed for from one third to one half its length in the deeply cup-shaped or nearly hemispheric cup light green and pubescent within, and covered by closely imbricated broadly ovate acute thin and scarious light brown scales clothed with short soft pale pubescence.