A tree, usually 50°—60°, rarely 80°—90° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, short stout branches spreading nearly at right angles and forming a dense round-topped symmetrical head, stout branchlets brittle at the joints, coated at first with short dense hoary tomentum, dark gray or reddish brown and tomentose, pubescent, or puberulous during their first winter, becoming ultimately ashy gray or dark brown; frequently not more than 20°—30° high, and sometimes, especially southward shrubby, in habit. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, ⅛′—¼′ long, with light rather bright red pubescent scales. Bark ½′—1′ thick, generally pale, and covered by small scales sometimes tinged with brown or light red. Wood hard, heavy, strong, brittle, dark brown, becoming nearly black with exposure, with thick light brown sapwood; largely used as fuel.
Distribution. Scattered over low hills, dry mountain slopes and valleys; California, Mendocino County, and the upper valley of the Sacramento River, southward along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada up to elevations of 4000°, and through valleys of the coast ranges to the Tehachapi Pass, the borders of the Mohave Desert (Sierra de la Liebre) and the neighborhood of San Fernando, Los Angeles County; most abundant and of its largest size in the valleys between the coast mountains and the interior ridges of the coast ranges south of the Bay of San Francisco.
× Quercus jolonensis Sarg. with characters intermediate between those of Quercus Douglasii and Quercus lobata and believed to be a hybrid of those species occurs, with a number of large trees, at Jolon and between Jolon and King City, Monterey County, California.
36. [Quercus Vaseyana] Buckl. Shin Oak.
Quercus undulata var. Vaseyana Rydb.
Leaves oblong, rarely oblong-obovate, acute or rounded at apex, cuneate at base, undulately lobed with small acute lobes pointing forward, rarely nearly entire, when they unfold covered above with short fascicled hairs sometimes persistent until midsummer, and tomentose below, and at maturity thin, pale gray-green, glabrous and lustrous above, pale pubescent below, 1′—1½′ long and ½′—¾′ wide; deciduous late in winter or in early spring; petioles covered with fascicled hairs when they first appear, becoming glabrous, ¼′ in length. Flowers: staminate in villose aments 1′—1¼′ long; calyx deeply divided into 4 or 5 ovate scarious lobes rounded at apex and shorter than the stamens; pistillate on short tomentose peduncles, their involucral scales ovate, acute, pubescent, shorter than the calyx-lobes; stigmas red. Fruit solitary or in pairs, sessile or short-stalked; nut ellipsoidal and only slightly narrowed at the rounded ends to oblong and slightly ovoid or obovoid, ½′—¾′ in length, ¼′—½′ in diameter, pale chestnut-brown and lustrous, the base only inclosed in the thin, saucer-shaped to cup-shaped cup, puberulous on the inner surface, covered with closely appressed ovate acute hoary tomentose scales, on some individuals abruptly contracted into short acute red-brown nearly glabrous tips.
A tree, rarely 15°—20° high, usually a shrub only 1°—3° tall, spreading into great thickets, with slender branchlets thickly covered with matted fascicled hairs during their first season, and light gray and glabrous or puberulous in their second year. Winter-buds ovoid or obovoid, about ⅛′ long, with red-brown scales ciliate on the margins. Bark rough, deeply furrowed and scaly.
Distribution. Limestone slopes and ridges or in sheltered cañons; western Texas; Kimble, Real, Kendall, Kerr, Uvalde, Edwards, Menard and Valverde Counties.