SPANISH OAK

SPANISH OAKSpanish oakSpanish Oak

Spanish oakSpanish Oak

Spanish Oak

SPANISH OAK(Quercus Digitata)One of the first difficulties in an attempt to clear up the misunderstandings regarding Spanish oak is to confine the name to the species to which it belongs. That is no easy task, because the name has been applied to numerous oaks in various parts of the country, and without any apparent reason. Some of these bear little resemblance to Spanish oak and grow almost wholly outside its range. It is not a case of mistaking one for the other, for there is no mistake. Some speak of the common red oak as Spanish oak, others bestow that name on yellow oak, others on black jack oak, or scarlet oak, or any one of several others. It appears, however, that the name is not applied to any member of the white oak group.It is said that Spanish oak and Norway pine were named by the same process. Each got its name because it was supposed to be similar to a species in the old country—the pine like an evergreen of north Europe, and the oak like a broadleaf tree of Spain. It was learned later that both the American species were different from those of Europe which they resembled.The peculiar drooping foliage of Spanish oak gives the tree a character which impresses a person who sees the full-leafed crown for the first time. The leaves are six or seven inches long and four or five wide. Their forms vary within wide limits, and their shapes change from week to week while growing. Some have no lobes or sinuses, others have them in rudimentary form only, while in still others they are well developed.The tree is often called red oak, particularly by lumbermen who cut it and send it to market with red oak. In Louisiana it is known as Spanish water oak, there being much resemblance between it and water oak (Quercus nigra) with which it is associated. Its range covers more than 200,000 square miles, beginning at the north in New Jersey and following down the coast regions to central Florida. It extends westward into Texas to the valley of the Brazos river; northward to Missouri and southern Indiana and Illinois. It does not grow far inland from the coast in the north Atlantic states, but further south it is common on the coast plain between the sea and the base of the mountains. It is often found on dry sand hills in that region. The largest Spanish oaks on record grew in the lower Ohio valley, particularly along the Wabash river. It is usually of medium size and large trunks are seldom seen. The average height is seventy or eighty feet, diameter two or three. Inthe open, the crown is broad and low, but in forests the trunk prunes itself fairly well, and makes good saw timber, as far as form and size are concerned. The acorns ripen in two years, and are bitter. The bark is rich in tannin, but tanneries do not use much of it.The tree is not generally abundant. Some large areas within its range have little, and thick stands are unusual anywhere. It is one of the oaks which lumbermen neither reject nor seek. They cut it in course of operations, and saw it and sell it under the common name, red oak.The wood is heavy, very hard, and strong. It is reputed to decay more rapidly than most oaks, and it checks badly in seasoning. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the springwood is marked by several rows of large open pores. The medullary rays are few but conspicuous; color light red, the sapwood lighter. The wood weighs about three pounds less than white oak per cubic foot, and its fuel value is less.It is not easy to compile an account of the uses of Spanish oak by the various industries of this country, for the reason that other oaks pass by its name and it is known by names which should not be applied to it. It is shown, however, where special studies of its utilization have been made that it is a useful wood for many purposes. It is a useful furniture material, and though statistics do not give separate figures for it, evidently the total quantity consumed yearly runs into many millions of feet. It is much employed in the manufacture of tables, chiefly for frames, but occasionally as the outside material. It may be quarter-sawed, if good logs are selected. The chair factories in North Carolina use about 44,000,000 feet of oak yearly, and Spanish oak supplies a rather large share of the material. It is employed as interior finish in that state, and also for mission furniture, brackets for telegraph and telephone poles, refrigerators, and kitchen safes. Slack coopers and manufacturers of boxes and crates find the wood suitable for their wares; but its open pores stand in the way of its use for tight cooperage.Similar uses of the wood occur in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and it may be assumed that they occur also in all other portions of Spanish oak’s range. It goes to wagon shops in Texas where it is substituted for red oak. It is employed also in the manufacture of rice hullers and cotton gins. Lumbermen in northern Louisiana use log trucks with axles, felloes, and other heavy parts of Spanish oak, and it is frequently preferred for stone wagons.In practically all large shipments of southern red oak to the North, some Spanish oak is mixed. It could not be otherwise, since this wood is cut in the forest with other red oaks, is sawed and stocked with them, and goes with them to market.Black Jack Oak(Quercus marilandica) is one of the scrub trees of this country, and few good words are ever heard for it; yet it has redeeming qualities. Lumbermen have not paid much attention to it and never will, for only when at its best is the trunk large enough for any kind of sawlog, and there has been little inclination to use it for anything else. It attains size fitting it for fence posts, and sometimes it performs service along that line; but the small trunks are nearly all sapwood, and decay strikes them quickly. The bark is black, hence the name, and it is exceedingly rough, and is broken in squares. The leaves are large and pear-shaped, with the broad end opposite the stem. Some are slightly lobed. A vigorous black jack oak, standing in open ground, presents a fine appearance. The crown is wide and is frequently conical, the limbs small, and are set in the trunk on nearly horizontal lines. The range of this unloved species covers 600,000 or more square miles, beginning in New York, running west to central Nebraska, south through Texas nearly to the Rio Grande, and in Florida to Tampa. It is not an aggressive tree and has permitted itself to be crowded off the good land until it has formed the habit of occupying geographical left-overs in the form of sand banks and wornout fields. In the northeastern part of its range it is often associated with scrub pine (Pinus virginiana), because the two have similar habits and are content to live in perpetual poverty on dry gravel or thin sand. Large trunks are not possible under such circumstances, and first-class wood is unusual. Black jack oak at its best may attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches, but it is oftener twenty feet high and six inches through. It grows with moderate rapidity and does not live long.The annual rings are often indistinct. The wood is hard, heavy, and strong, and checks badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are broad and conspicuous, the wood dark brown in color, the sapwood lighter. This oak is very high in ash contents, more than one per cent of the dry weight of wood going to ashes when burned. The tree reaches its best development in the lower Mississippi valley, and in eastern Texas. Comparatively few uses for it have been found. Cordwood cutters find it valuable where it abounds in sufficient quantity, and it has been burned for charcoal for iron foundries and blacksmith shops. Small amounts are occasionally found in wood-using factories in Texas, but only when logs with considerable heartwood can be procured. The sap is characterless and seems to be utterly rejected at the factory. Sometimes the rich brown of the heartwood is attractive, but more frequently the wood is ringed and splotched with different colors, not distributed in a way to give any artistic effect. When a satisfactory stick is found, it can be worked into balusters and small spindles whichshow grain well. It is also worked into broad panels made up of narrow, quarter-sawed strips, which exhibit the dark flecks of the wood to good advantage.Trident Oak(Quercus tridentata) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri—a single tree—which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made.Lea Oak(Quercus leana), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow oak (Quercus velutina) and shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly known.Spanish oak branch

One of the first difficulties in an attempt to clear up the misunderstandings regarding Spanish oak is to confine the name to the species to which it belongs. That is no easy task, because the name has been applied to numerous oaks in various parts of the country, and without any apparent reason. Some of these bear little resemblance to Spanish oak and grow almost wholly outside its range. It is not a case of mistaking one for the other, for there is no mistake. Some speak of the common red oak as Spanish oak, others bestow that name on yellow oak, others on black jack oak, or scarlet oak, or any one of several others. It appears, however, that the name is not applied to any member of the white oak group.

It is said that Spanish oak and Norway pine were named by the same process. Each got its name because it was supposed to be similar to a species in the old country—the pine like an evergreen of north Europe, and the oak like a broadleaf tree of Spain. It was learned later that both the American species were different from those of Europe which they resembled.

The peculiar drooping foliage of Spanish oak gives the tree a character which impresses a person who sees the full-leafed crown for the first time. The leaves are six or seven inches long and four or five wide. Their forms vary within wide limits, and their shapes change from week to week while growing. Some have no lobes or sinuses, others have them in rudimentary form only, while in still others they are well developed.

The tree is often called red oak, particularly by lumbermen who cut it and send it to market with red oak. In Louisiana it is known as Spanish water oak, there being much resemblance between it and water oak (Quercus nigra) with which it is associated. Its range covers more than 200,000 square miles, beginning at the north in New Jersey and following down the coast regions to central Florida. It extends westward into Texas to the valley of the Brazos river; northward to Missouri and southern Indiana and Illinois. It does not grow far inland from the coast in the north Atlantic states, but further south it is common on the coast plain between the sea and the base of the mountains. It is often found on dry sand hills in that region. The largest Spanish oaks on record grew in the lower Ohio valley, particularly along the Wabash river. It is usually of medium size and large trunks are seldom seen. The average height is seventy or eighty feet, diameter two or three. Inthe open, the crown is broad and low, but in forests the trunk prunes itself fairly well, and makes good saw timber, as far as form and size are concerned. The acorns ripen in two years, and are bitter. The bark is rich in tannin, but tanneries do not use much of it.

The tree is not generally abundant. Some large areas within its range have little, and thick stands are unusual anywhere. It is one of the oaks which lumbermen neither reject nor seek. They cut it in course of operations, and saw it and sell it under the common name, red oak.

The wood is heavy, very hard, and strong. It is reputed to decay more rapidly than most oaks, and it checks badly in seasoning. The annual rings of growth are broad, and the springwood is marked by several rows of large open pores. The medullary rays are few but conspicuous; color light red, the sapwood lighter. The wood weighs about three pounds less than white oak per cubic foot, and its fuel value is less.

It is not easy to compile an account of the uses of Spanish oak by the various industries of this country, for the reason that other oaks pass by its name and it is known by names which should not be applied to it. It is shown, however, where special studies of its utilization have been made that it is a useful wood for many purposes. It is a useful furniture material, and though statistics do not give separate figures for it, evidently the total quantity consumed yearly runs into many millions of feet. It is much employed in the manufacture of tables, chiefly for frames, but occasionally as the outside material. It may be quarter-sawed, if good logs are selected. The chair factories in North Carolina use about 44,000,000 feet of oak yearly, and Spanish oak supplies a rather large share of the material. It is employed as interior finish in that state, and also for mission furniture, brackets for telegraph and telephone poles, refrigerators, and kitchen safes. Slack coopers and manufacturers of boxes and crates find the wood suitable for their wares; but its open pores stand in the way of its use for tight cooperage.

Similar uses of the wood occur in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and it may be assumed that they occur also in all other portions of Spanish oak’s range. It goes to wagon shops in Texas where it is substituted for red oak. It is employed also in the manufacture of rice hullers and cotton gins. Lumbermen in northern Louisiana use log trucks with axles, felloes, and other heavy parts of Spanish oak, and it is frequently preferred for stone wagons.

In practically all large shipments of southern red oak to the North, some Spanish oak is mixed. It could not be otherwise, since this wood is cut in the forest with other red oaks, is sawed and stocked with them, and goes with them to market.

Black Jack Oak(Quercus marilandica) is one of the scrub trees of this country, and few good words are ever heard for it; yet it has redeeming qualities. Lumbermen have not paid much attention to it and never will, for only when at its best is the trunk large enough for any kind of sawlog, and there has been little inclination to use it for anything else. It attains size fitting it for fence posts, and sometimes it performs service along that line; but the small trunks are nearly all sapwood, and decay strikes them quickly. The bark is black, hence the name, and it is exceedingly rough, and is broken in squares. The leaves are large and pear-shaped, with the broad end opposite the stem. Some are slightly lobed. A vigorous black jack oak, standing in open ground, presents a fine appearance. The crown is wide and is frequently conical, the limbs small, and are set in the trunk on nearly horizontal lines. The range of this unloved species covers 600,000 or more square miles, beginning in New York, running west to central Nebraska, south through Texas nearly to the Rio Grande, and in Florida to Tampa. It is not an aggressive tree and has permitted itself to be crowded off the good land until it has formed the habit of occupying geographical left-overs in the form of sand banks and wornout fields. In the northeastern part of its range it is often associated with scrub pine (Pinus virginiana), because the two have similar habits and are content to live in perpetual poverty on dry gravel or thin sand. Large trunks are not possible under such circumstances, and first-class wood is unusual. Black jack oak at its best may attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches, but it is oftener twenty feet high and six inches through. It grows with moderate rapidity and does not live long.

The annual rings are often indistinct. The wood is hard, heavy, and strong, and checks badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are broad and conspicuous, the wood dark brown in color, the sapwood lighter. This oak is very high in ash contents, more than one per cent of the dry weight of wood going to ashes when burned. The tree reaches its best development in the lower Mississippi valley, and in eastern Texas. Comparatively few uses for it have been found. Cordwood cutters find it valuable where it abounds in sufficient quantity, and it has been burned for charcoal for iron foundries and blacksmith shops. Small amounts are occasionally found in wood-using factories in Texas, but only when logs with considerable heartwood can be procured. The sap is characterless and seems to be utterly rejected at the factory. Sometimes the rich brown of the heartwood is attractive, but more frequently the wood is ringed and splotched with different colors, not distributed in a way to give any artistic effect. When a satisfactory stick is found, it can be worked into balusters and small spindles whichshow grain well. It is also worked into broad panels made up of narrow, quarter-sawed strips, which exhibit the dark flecks of the wood to good advantage.

Trident Oak(Quercus tridentata) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri—a single tree—which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made.Lea Oak(Quercus leana), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow oak (Quercus velutina) and shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly known.

Trident Oak(Quercus tridentata) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri—a single tree—which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made.

Lea Oak(Quercus leana), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow oak (Quercus velutina) and shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly known.

Spanish oak branch

LAUREL OAKLaurel oakLaurel Oak

Laurel oakLaurel Oak

Laurel Oak

LAUREL OAK(Quercus Laurifolia)This representative of the black oak group is found nowhere except in the southeastern states, and only in their borders. It never ranges far inland, but sticks to wet localities and the margins of swamps where its associates are tupelo, southern white cedar, cypress, magnolias, and, near its southern limit, myrtle and other semi-tropical trees and shrubs. It is sometimes utilized as an ornament, but that is not its usual function. It is not a successful competitor as a shade tree with willow oak and water oak.Beginning at the border of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia as the northern limit of growth, this interesting tree ranges southward along the coast to Cape Romano in Florida and westward in the lower Gulf states to southeastern Louisiana. It is seen at its best in eastern Florida. It puts forth a vigorous growth on the hummock land in the southern part of that state, where it develops a shapely trunk when in crowded stands. It grows well in very rocky ground.Although the common name laurel oak is prompted by its foliage, the tree bears various other sectional names. It is known as laurel oak in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida; Darlington oak in South Carolina; willow oak in Florida and South Carolina; water oak in Georgia. The latter name has a tendency to confuse it with another species which is properly called water oak (Quercus nigra).The ornamental qualities of this tree are due to the tall stately bole, its shapely and symmetrical round-topped head and slender branches and twigs. It sometimes attains the dignity of one hundred feet in height with a proportionate diameter of three or four feet. The bark is firm, of dark, reddish-brown color, and usually is not fissured but finely broken into small close, scale-like plates. On old trees, especially at the butt, deep fissures divide it into broad ridges. The buds are shiny brown, and they narrow abruptly to an acute point. The acorns are either sessile or have short stalks, and they usually grow alone. They are short and broad, and are incased in shallow, thin cups. In the flowering season hairy aments add to the attractiveness of the tree. The leaves are dark green above and lighter on the lower surface and are grouped rather closely on the twigs. They attain a length of four inches or less, and fall gradually after turning yellow.Laurel oak seems to be little used. It is occasionally referred to as rather inferior to other members of the black oak group, but it is not apparent why it bears that reputation. It may be on account of itspoor seasoning qualities. Like other southern oaks, it is very heavy when green, and it is inclined to shrink and warp while in the process of parting with its moisture. If this can be successfully overcome, the wood ought to be valuable. Tests made on four samples cut on St. John’s river, Florida, recorded in Sargent’s tables, show remarkable results. The wood is 34 per cent stronger and 37 per cent stiffer than white oak, and is only one pound heavier per cubic foot of dry wood. If these values are fairly representative of the wood of laurel oak, it should be exceptionally valuable in vehicle making. It would fall considerably below hickory, but would stand very high among other woods, and could be recommended for wagon axles, tongues, and other parts of heavy vehicles.It should be borne in mind, however, that tests alone, and particularly when the number of samples is small, are not sufficient to decide a wood’s place as a manufacturing material. It must be tried in actual practice, and that has not yet been done in the case of laurel oak as a wagon wood. When tried out it may exhibit defects, or undesirable qualities, which are not apparent in samples employed in laboratory tests.There is little exact information available in regard to the supply of laurel oak in the South. It is not abundant in the sense that willow oak and Texan red oak are. Neither are the trees generally of good form for lumber. Little has ever been cut, because the land where it grows is not demanded for agriculture. It occupies out-of-the-way places, and the hunter and fisherman are better acquainted with it than the lumberman.Highland Oak(Quercus wislizeni) is a California evergreen with leaves commonly shaped like holly, but sometimes their edges are smooth with no sign of teeth. The foliage remains longer on this tree than is usual with evergreen oaks. Old leaves generally fall within a month after the new crop appears; but those of highland oak remain several months longer, gradually falling during the second summer. When the tree is at its best it is a splendid representative of the vegetable kingdom. Its form does not please lumbermen, for the trunk is short and rough; but the crown rises seventy or eighty feet, is symmetrical, the foliage dark green, and the general appearance is that of an enormous holly tree. Trunks are sometimes five or six feet in diameter. The name highland oak is somewhat misleading, though the species ascends to an altitude of 6,000 feet or more. It is described as a highland tree to distinguish it from the California live oak (Quercus agrifolia) which grows in the vicinity of the sea in California. The highland oak ranges from northern California to the international boundary, following the foothills of the mountain ranges. It occurs in dry river bottoms andwashes and in desert mountain canyons. It is not choice as to soil but will grow in loam, sand, gravel, or among rocks. It is not abundant.When it grows near the sea it is apt to lose its tree form and become a shrub. It assumes that form on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands off the coast of southern California. It grows slowly and is tenacious of life. When it has once secured a foothold it hangs on with determination, though exposed to severe storms and inhospitable conditions. The acorns do not mature until late in the autumn of their second year. They are sometimes an inch and a half long, and scarcely a third of an inch thick. The wood of this oak possesses some good qualities which are locally appreciated by wagon makers who use it for repair work. It is extensively cut for fuel, and it burns about like eastern white oak, but leaves more ashes. The dry wood weighs 49 pounds per cubic foot. It is considerably weaker than white oak and is less elastic. The summerwood constitutes a large part of the annual growth ring. It is very porous, the rows of pores running parallel with the medullary rays. This part of the wood structure is midway between that of deciduous and the evergreen oaks. The medullary rays are broad but short. When exposed on a tangential surface, they are from one-fourth to one-half inch long, and give the wood a flecked appearance. Exposed in cross section, they are from one inch to four inches in length. This applies, of course, only to large rays, easily seen with the naked eye. In quarter-sawed lumber, the rays have a pinkish color and glossy luster which are not pleasing. This tree belongs in the class with those which are in no danger of being extirpated by human agencies. It occupies land which man does not need and will never want.Myrtle Oak(Quercus myrtifolia) associates with the laurel oak in some parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and closely resembles it, though it is smaller, and gives little promise of ever becoming important in a commercial way. It is clearly in the scrub oak class, and does not approach the dignity of even a small tree in most of its range. Few specimens can be found exceeding a height of twenty feet and a diameter of five or six inches. Trees approaching that size grow in western Florida in the region of the Apalachicola river. Generally this oak covers dry, sandy ridges and islands, and is shrubby. It forms thickets on some of the islands off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, and extends its range westward to the low, southern parts of Louisiana where the dwarf trees are almost hidden by tall reeds and grass. Its name refers to the leaf it bears. It is impossible that man can ever make much use of this tree.Morehus Oak(Quercus morehus) can never be important in the lumber industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground needs a cover. Its range is in the northern coast range and the Sierra foothills, extending as far south as Kings river. The edges of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage falls in late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The wood has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too scarce to be important. The most interesting thing connected with this tree is that it is supposed to be ahybrid—a cross between highland oak and California black oak. It was first found in 1863, and a considerable range has since been established for it.It is the opinion of some investigators that new tree species have their origin in crosses between existing species. Of the countless thousands of such crosses a few, at long intervals of time, may develop characteristics which enable them to maintain their existence and to spread into new territory. If that occurs, a new kind of tree has appeared on earth and is ready to take its place among the established forests of the region. Cross-fertilization among trees and plants is very common, but so many adverse conditions are encountered, that few hybrids ever amount to anything.Laurel oak branch

This representative of the black oak group is found nowhere except in the southeastern states, and only in their borders. It never ranges far inland, but sticks to wet localities and the margins of swamps where its associates are tupelo, southern white cedar, cypress, magnolias, and, near its southern limit, myrtle and other semi-tropical trees and shrubs. It is sometimes utilized as an ornament, but that is not its usual function. It is not a successful competitor as a shade tree with willow oak and water oak.

Beginning at the border of the Dismal Swamp in Virginia as the northern limit of growth, this interesting tree ranges southward along the coast to Cape Romano in Florida and westward in the lower Gulf states to southeastern Louisiana. It is seen at its best in eastern Florida. It puts forth a vigorous growth on the hummock land in the southern part of that state, where it develops a shapely trunk when in crowded stands. It grows well in very rocky ground.

Although the common name laurel oak is prompted by its foliage, the tree bears various other sectional names. It is known as laurel oak in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida; Darlington oak in South Carolina; willow oak in Florida and South Carolina; water oak in Georgia. The latter name has a tendency to confuse it with another species which is properly called water oak (Quercus nigra).

The ornamental qualities of this tree are due to the tall stately bole, its shapely and symmetrical round-topped head and slender branches and twigs. It sometimes attains the dignity of one hundred feet in height with a proportionate diameter of three or four feet. The bark is firm, of dark, reddish-brown color, and usually is not fissured but finely broken into small close, scale-like plates. On old trees, especially at the butt, deep fissures divide it into broad ridges. The buds are shiny brown, and they narrow abruptly to an acute point. The acorns are either sessile or have short stalks, and they usually grow alone. They are short and broad, and are incased in shallow, thin cups. In the flowering season hairy aments add to the attractiveness of the tree. The leaves are dark green above and lighter on the lower surface and are grouped rather closely on the twigs. They attain a length of four inches or less, and fall gradually after turning yellow.

Laurel oak seems to be little used. It is occasionally referred to as rather inferior to other members of the black oak group, but it is not apparent why it bears that reputation. It may be on account of itspoor seasoning qualities. Like other southern oaks, it is very heavy when green, and it is inclined to shrink and warp while in the process of parting with its moisture. If this can be successfully overcome, the wood ought to be valuable. Tests made on four samples cut on St. John’s river, Florida, recorded in Sargent’s tables, show remarkable results. The wood is 34 per cent stronger and 37 per cent stiffer than white oak, and is only one pound heavier per cubic foot of dry wood. If these values are fairly representative of the wood of laurel oak, it should be exceptionally valuable in vehicle making. It would fall considerably below hickory, but would stand very high among other woods, and could be recommended for wagon axles, tongues, and other parts of heavy vehicles.

It should be borne in mind, however, that tests alone, and particularly when the number of samples is small, are not sufficient to decide a wood’s place as a manufacturing material. It must be tried in actual practice, and that has not yet been done in the case of laurel oak as a wagon wood. When tried out it may exhibit defects, or undesirable qualities, which are not apparent in samples employed in laboratory tests.

There is little exact information available in regard to the supply of laurel oak in the South. It is not abundant in the sense that willow oak and Texan red oak are. Neither are the trees generally of good form for lumber. Little has ever been cut, because the land where it grows is not demanded for agriculture. It occupies out-of-the-way places, and the hunter and fisherman are better acquainted with it than the lumberman.

Highland Oak(Quercus wislizeni) is a California evergreen with leaves commonly shaped like holly, but sometimes their edges are smooth with no sign of teeth. The foliage remains longer on this tree than is usual with evergreen oaks. Old leaves generally fall within a month after the new crop appears; but those of highland oak remain several months longer, gradually falling during the second summer. When the tree is at its best it is a splendid representative of the vegetable kingdom. Its form does not please lumbermen, for the trunk is short and rough; but the crown rises seventy or eighty feet, is symmetrical, the foliage dark green, and the general appearance is that of an enormous holly tree. Trunks are sometimes five or six feet in diameter. The name highland oak is somewhat misleading, though the species ascends to an altitude of 6,000 feet or more. It is described as a highland tree to distinguish it from the California live oak (Quercus agrifolia) which grows in the vicinity of the sea in California. The highland oak ranges from northern California to the international boundary, following the foothills of the mountain ranges. It occurs in dry river bottoms andwashes and in desert mountain canyons. It is not choice as to soil but will grow in loam, sand, gravel, or among rocks. It is not abundant.

When it grows near the sea it is apt to lose its tree form and become a shrub. It assumes that form on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands off the coast of southern California. It grows slowly and is tenacious of life. When it has once secured a foothold it hangs on with determination, though exposed to severe storms and inhospitable conditions. The acorns do not mature until late in the autumn of their second year. They are sometimes an inch and a half long, and scarcely a third of an inch thick. The wood of this oak possesses some good qualities which are locally appreciated by wagon makers who use it for repair work. It is extensively cut for fuel, and it burns about like eastern white oak, but leaves more ashes. The dry wood weighs 49 pounds per cubic foot. It is considerably weaker than white oak and is less elastic. The summerwood constitutes a large part of the annual growth ring. It is very porous, the rows of pores running parallel with the medullary rays. This part of the wood structure is midway between that of deciduous and the evergreen oaks. The medullary rays are broad but short. When exposed on a tangential surface, they are from one-fourth to one-half inch long, and give the wood a flecked appearance. Exposed in cross section, they are from one inch to four inches in length. This applies, of course, only to large rays, easily seen with the naked eye. In quarter-sawed lumber, the rays have a pinkish color and glossy luster which are not pleasing. This tree belongs in the class with those which are in no danger of being extirpated by human agencies. It occupies land which man does not need and will never want.

Myrtle Oak(Quercus myrtifolia) associates with the laurel oak in some parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and closely resembles it, though it is smaller, and gives little promise of ever becoming important in a commercial way. It is clearly in the scrub oak class, and does not approach the dignity of even a small tree in most of its range. Few specimens can be found exceeding a height of twenty feet and a diameter of five or six inches. Trees approaching that size grow in western Florida in the region of the Apalachicola river. Generally this oak covers dry, sandy ridges and islands, and is shrubby. It forms thickets on some of the islands off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, and extends its range westward to the low, southern parts of Louisiana where the dwarf trees are almost hidden by tall reeds and grass. Its name refers to the leaf it bears. It is impossible that man can ever make much use of this tree.Morehus Oak(Quercus morehus) can never be important in the lumber industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground needs a cover. Its range is in the northern coast range and the Sierra foothills, extending as far south as Kings river. The edges of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage falls in late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The wood has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too scarce to be important. The most interesting thing connected with this tree is that it is supposed to be ahybrid—a cross between highland oak and California black oak. It was first found in 1863, and a considerable range has since been established for it.It is the opinion of some investigators that new tree species have their origin in crosses between existing species. Of the countless thousands of such crosses a few, at long intervals of time, may develop characteristics which enable them to maintain their existence and to spread into new territory. If that occurs, a new kind of tree has appeared on earth and is ready to take its place among the established forests of the region. Cross-fertilization among trees and plants is very common, but so many adverse conditions are encountered, that few hybrids ever amount to anything.

Myrtle Oak(Quercus myrtifolia) associates with the laurel oak in some parts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and closely resembles it, though it is smaller, and gives little promise of ever becoming important in a commercial way. It is clearly in the scrub oak class, and does not approach the dignity of even a small tree in most of its range. Few specimens can be found exceeding a height of twenty feet and a diameter of five or six inches. Trees approaching that size grow in western Florida in the region of the Apalachicola river. Generally this oak covers dry, sandy ridges and islands, and is shrubby. It forms thickets on some of the islands off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, and extends its range westward to the low, southern parts of Louisiana where the dwarf trees are almost hidden by tall reeds and grass. Its name refers to the leaf it bears. It is impossible that man can ever make much use of this tree.

Morehus Oak(Quercus morehus) can never be important in the lumber industry, but it fills a few places in California where the ground needs a cover. Its range is in the northern coast range and the Sierra foothills, extending as far south as Kings river. The edges of the leaves bear bent hooks like saw teeth. The foliage falls in late winter. Trees are occasionally a foot or more in diameter. The wood has not the appearance of possessing much value, and is too scarce to be important. The most interesting thing connected with this tree is that it is supposed to be ahybrid—a cross between highland oak and California black oak. It was first found in 1863, and a considerable range has since been established for it.

It is the opinion of some investigators that new tree species have their origin in crosses between existing species. Of the countless thousands of such crosses a few, at long intervals of time, may develop characteristics which enable them to maintain their existence and to spread into new territory. If that occurs, a new kind of tree has appeared on earth and is ready to take its place among the established forests of the region. Cross-fertilization among trees and plants is very common, but so many adverse conditions are encountered, that few hybrids ever amount to anything.

Laurel oak branch

PIN OAKPin oakPin Oak

Pin oakPin Oak

Pin Oak

PIN OAK(Quercus Palustris)Pin oak ranges from certain sections of Massachusetts, notably the Connecticut river valley, and near Amherst, westward as far as the southeastern part of Missouri; on the south it is found along the lower Potomac river in Virginia, in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.It is known as pin oak in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas; in Arkansas and Kansas it is called swamp Spanish oak; in Rhode Island and Illinois it is often known as water oak; in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kansas as swamp oak; in Arkansas as water Spanish oak.The name pin oak is said to belong to this tree because of a peculiarity of its branches. They leave the trunk and the larger limbs at nearly right angles, and criss-cross in all directions, resembling pins thrust into the wood, and bristling outward at every angle. The crowding to which they are subjected kills many of them as the tree reaches middle age, but the stubs do not drop quickly, and as many of the characteristic pins appear to be present as ever. Such is the usual explanation given to account for the name, and the facts fit the theory; but the fact that several other species are called pin oaks is not accounted for. The habit of the branches of all of them is not the same. The Gambel oak in its Arizona range has that name. So has the chinquapin oak in Arkansas and Texas, but that is apparently a shortening of its true name, the last syllable only being used. They call the Durand oak pin oak in Texas, but without any known reason.The botanical namepalustris, belonging to this species, refers to the tree’s habit of growing in swamps and damp land along river bottoms. It is not a swamp tree as cypress is, but is more like swamp white oak, and finds its most congenial surroundings on the borders of streams and on fairly well drained lowland where roots readily reach water.The leaves are three or five inches long, are simple, and alternate. They are broad, and have from five to nine lobes which are toothed, and bristle-tipped on the ends. The sinuses are broad and rounded, and extend well toward the midrib, which is stout, and from which the veins branch off conspicuously. In color the leaves are bright green above and lighter below when young, becoming thin, firm and darker green at maturity; late in autumn they turn a rich, deep scarlet. They are coated below with pubescence, and have large tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the veins.The fruit of pin oak is a small acorn which grows either sessile or on a very short stem; sometimes in clusters, and sometimes singly. In shape the acorns are nearly hemispherical, and measure about a half inch in diameter; they are enclosed only at the base, in a thin, saucer-shaped cup, dark brown, and scaly.The bark of a mature tree is dark gray or brownish-green; it is rough, being full of small furrows, and frequently cracks open and shows the reddish inner layer of bark. On small branches and young trunks, it is smoother, lighter, and more lustrous.Pin oak is smaller than red oak. Average trees are seventy or eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. Specimens 120 feet high and four feet in diameter are heard of but are seldom seen. Near the northern limit of pin oak’s range large trees are not found, nor are small trees plentiful. This holds true in all parts of New England and northern New York where the species is found growing naturally. South of Pennsylvania, along the flood plains of rivers which flow to Chesapeake bay, a better class of timber is found. The best development of the species is in the lower Ohio valley.It grows rapidly, but falls a little short of the red oak. When young growth is cut, sprouts will rise from the stumps and flourish for a time, but merchantable trees are seldom or never produced that way. The acorn must be depended on. It has been remarked that pin oak does not prune itself well, but it does better in dense stands than in open ground. In the latter case the limbs are late in dying and falling.Pin oak has proved to be a valuable street and park tree. It possesses several characteristics which recommend it for that use. It grows rapidly, and it quickly attains a size which lessens its liability to injury by accidents. Its shade is tolerably dense; the crown is shapely and attractive; the leaves fall late; and it seems to stand the smoke and dust of cities better than many other trees. It is easily and successfully transplanted if taken when small. Many towns and cities from Long Island to Washington, D. C., have planted the pin oak along streets, avenues, and in parks. Several thoroughfares in Washington are shaded by them.Considerable planting of pin oak has been done by railroads which expect to grow ties. Trees of this species when cut in forests and made into crossties do not all show similar resistance to decay. Some ties are perishable in a short time, while others give satisfactory service. The best endure well without preservative treatment, but all are benefited by it. If the experimental plantings turn out well, it may be expected that pin oak will fill an important place in the crosstie business.Because of numerous limbs, lumber cut from pin oak is apt to beknotty, and the percentage of good grades small. The annual rings are wide, and are about evenly divided between spring and summerwood, though the latter often exceeds the former. Its general appearance suggests red oak, but it is more porous in trunks of thrifty growth. The springwood is largely made up of pores. The medullary rays are hardly as prominent as those of red oak, but in other ways resemble them. The wood weighs 43.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is a little above red oak. It is hard and strong, dark brown with thin sapwood of darker color. The lumber checks and warps badly in seasoning.The uses to which pin oak is put must be considered in a general way because of the absence of exact statistics. The wood is not listed by the lumber trade under its own name, but goes along with others of the black oak group. Its uses, however, are known along a number of lines. Lumbermen cut it wherever it is found mixed with other hardwoods. Sometimes vehicle manufacturers make a point of securing a supply of this wood. That occurs oftener with small concerns than large. It is made into felloes, reaches, and bolsters. Furniture makers use it, and well selected, quarter-sawed stock is occasionally reduced to veneer. The articles produced pass for red oak, and it would be very difficult to detect the difference between pin oak and true red oak when finished as veneer. Some highly attractive mission furniture is said to be of pin oak.More goes to chair stock mills than to factories which produce higher classes of furniture. Chairs utilize very small pieces, and that gives the stock cutter a chance to trim out the knots and produce the maximum amount of clear stuff. Chair makers in Michigan reported the use of 60,000 feet of pin oak in 1910. Slack coopers work in much the same way as chair mills, and pin oak is acceptable material for many classes of barrels and other containers. Small tight knots are frequently not defects sufficient to cause the rejection of staves. Tight coopers do not find pin oak suitable, because the wood is too porous to hold liquids, particularly liquors containing alcohol. The wood is mixed at mills with red oak and other similar species and is manufactured into picture frames, boxes, crates, interior finish for houses, and many other commodities requiring strength or handsome finish. In early years when the people manufactured by hand what they needed, and obtained their timber from the nearest forest or woodlot, they split fence rails, pickets, clapboards, and shingles of pin oak.Oak-apples or galls are the round excrescences formed on the limbs by gallflies and their eggs. They seem particularly fond of this species and specimens are often seen which are literally covered with them. The worms which live inside seem to flourish particularly well on thefood they imbibe from pin oak. The primitive school teachers three or four generations ago turned these oak galls to account. They are rich in tannin, and were employed in manufacturing the local ink supply. The teachers were the ink makers as well as the pen cutters when the pens were whittled from quills. The process of making the ink was simple. The galls were soaked in a kettle of water and nails. The iron acted on the tannin and produced the desired blackness, but if special luster was desired, it was furnished by adding the fruit of the wild greenbrier (Smilax rotundifolia), which grew abundantly in the woods. It was well that steel pens were not then in use, for the schoolmaster’s oak ink would have eaten up such a pen in a single day.Pin oak branch

Pin oak ranges from certain sections of Massachusetts, notably the Connecticut river valley, and near Amherst, westward as far as the southeastern part of Missouri; on the south it is found along the lower Potomac river in Virginia, in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

It is known as pin oak in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kansas; in Arkansas and Kansas it is called swamp Spanish oak; in Rhode Island and Illinois it is often known as water oak; in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kansas as swamp oak; in Arkansas as water Spanish oak.

The name pin oak is said to belong to this tree because of a peculiarity of its branches. They leave the trunk and the larger limbs at nearly right angles, and criss-cross in all directions, resembling pins thrust into the wood, and bristling outward at every angle. The crowding to which they are subjected kills many of them as the tree reaches middle age, but the stubs do not drop quickly, and as many of the characteristic pins appear to be present as ever. Such is the usual explanation given to account for the name, and the facts fit the theory; but the fact that several other species are called pin oaks is not accounted for. The habit of the branches of all of them is not the same. The Gambel oak in its Arizona range has that name. So has the chinquapin oak in Arkansas and Texas, but that is apparently a shortening of its true name, the last syllable only being used. They call the Durand oak pin oak in Texas, but without any known reason.

The botanical namepalustris, belonging to this species, refers to the tree’s habit of growing in swamps and damp land along river bottoms. It is not a swamp tree as cypress is, but is more like swamp white oak, and finds its most congenial surroundings on the borders of streams and on fairly well drained lowland where roots readily reach water.

The leaves are three or five inches long, are simple, and alternate. They are broad, and have from five to nine lobes which are toothed, and bristle-tipped on the ends. The sinuses are broad and rounded, and extend well toward the midrib, which is stout, and from which the veins branch off conspicuously. In color the leaves are bright green above and lighter below when young, becoming thin, firm and darker green at maturity; late in autumn they turn a rich, deep scarlet. They are coated below with pubescence, and have large tufts of pale hairs in the axils of the veins.

The fruit of pin oak is a small acorn which grows either sessile or on a very short stem; sometimes in clusters, and sometimes singly. In shape the acorns are nearly hemispherical, and measure about a half inch in diameter; they are enclosed only at the base, in a thin, saucer-shaped cup, dark brown, and scaly.

The bark of a mature tree is dark gray or brownish-green; it is rough, being full of small furrows, and frequently cracks open and shows the reddish inner layer of bark. On small branches and young trunks, it is smoother, lighter, and more lustrous.

Pin oak is smaller than red oak. Average trees are seventy or eighty feet high and two or three in diameter. Specimens 120 feet high and four feet in diameter are heard of but are seldom seen. Near the northern limit of pin oak’s range large trees are not found, nor are small trees plentiful. This holds true in all parts of New England and northern New York where the species is found growing naturally. South of Pennsylvania, along the flood plains of rivers which flow to Chesapeake bay, a better class of timber is found. The best development of the species is in the lower Ohio valley.

It grows rapidly, but falls a little short of the red oak. When young growth is cut, sprouts will rise from the stumps and flourish for a time, but merchantable trees are seldom or never produced that way. The acorn must be depended on. It has been remarked that pin oak does not prune itself well, but it does better in dense stands than in open ground. In the latter case the limbs are late in dying and falling.

Pin oak has proved to be a valuable street and park tree. It possesses several characteristics which recommend it for that use. It grows rapidly, and it quickly attains a size which lessens its liability to injury by accidents. Its shade is tolerably dense; the crown is shapely and attractive; the leaves fall late; and it seems to stand the smoke and dust of cities better than many other trees. It is easily and successfully transplanted if taken when small. Many towns and cities from Long Island to Washington, D. C., have planted the pin oak along streets, avenues, and in parks. Several thoroughfares in Washington are shaded by them.

Considerable planting of pin oak has been done by railroads which expect to grow ties. Trees of this species when cut in forests and made into crossties do not all show similar resistance to decay. Some ties are perishable in a short time, while others give satisfactory service. The best endure well without preservative treatment, but all are benefited by it. If the experimental plantings turn out well, it may be expected that pin oak will fill an important place in the crosstie business.

Because of numerous limbs, lumber cut from pin oak is apt to beknotty, and the percentage of good grades small. The annual rings are wide, and are about evenly divided between spring and summerwood, though the latter often exceeds the former. Its general appearance suggests red oak, but it is more porous in trunks of thrifty growth. The springwood is largely made up of pores. The medullary rays are hardly as prominent as those of red oak, but in other ways resemble them. The wood weighs 43.24 pounds per cubic foot, which is a little above red oak. It is hard and strong, dark brown with thin sapwood of darker color. The lumber checks and warps badly in seasoning.

The uses to which pin oak is put must be considered in a general way because of the absence of exact statistics. The wood is not listed by the lumber trade under its own name, but goes along with others of the black oak group. Its uses, however, are known along a number of lines. Lumbermen cut it wherever it is found mixed with other hardwoods. Sometimes vehicle manufacturers make a point of securing a supply of this wood. That occurs oftener with small concerns than large. It is made into felloes, reaches, and bolsters. Furniture makers use it, and well selected, quarter-sawed stock is occasionally reduced to veneer. The articles produced pass for red oak, and it would be very difficult to detect the difference between pin oak and true red oak when finished as veneer. Some highly attractive mission furniture is said to be of pin oak.

More goes to chair stock mills than to factories which produce higher classes of furniture. Chairs utilize very small pieces, and that gives the stock cutter a chance to trim out the knots and produce the maximum amount of clear stuff. Chair makers in Michigan reported the use of 60,000 feet of pin oak in 1910. Slack coopers work in much the same way as chair mills, and pin oak is acceptable material for many classes of barrels and other containers. Small tight knots are frequently not defects sufficient to cause the rejection of staves. Tight coopers do not find pin oak suitable, because the wood is too porous to hold liquids, particularly liquors containing alcohol. The wood is mixed at mills with red oak and other similar species and is manufactured into picture frames, boxes, crates, interior finish for houses, and many other commodities requiring strength or handsome finish. In early years when the people manufactured by hand what they needed, and obtained their timber from the nearest forest or woodlot, they split fence rails, pickets, clapboards, and shingles of pin oak.

Oak-apples or galls are the round excrescences formed on the limbs by gallflies and their eggs. They seem particularly fond of this species and specimens are often seen which are literally covered with them. The worms which live inside seem to flourish particularly well on thefood they imbibe from pin oak. The primitive school teachers three or four generations ago turned these oak galls to account. They are rich in tannin, and were employed in manufacturing the local ink supply. The teachers were the ink makers as well as the pen cutters when the pens were whittled from quills. The process of making the ink was simple. The galls were soaked in a kettle of water and nails. The iron acted on the tannin and produced the desired blackness, but if special luster was desired, it was furnished by adding the fruit of the wild greenbrier (Smilax rotundifolia), which grew abundantly in the woods. It was well that steel pens were not then in use, for the schoolmaster’s oak ink would have eaten up such a pen in a single day.

Pin oak branch

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAKCalifornia live oakCalifornia Live Oak

California live oakCalifornia Live Oak

California Live Oak

CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK(Quercus Agrifolia)This fine western tree belongs to the black oak group, yet its acorns mature in one year, like those of white oaks. It is the only known black oak with that habit. It is properly classed with canyon live oak which has many characteristics of white oak, yet matures its acorns the second year. The two oaks with freakish fruit belong in California, and to some extent occupy the same range. California live oak is apparently making an effort to conform to the habit of other black oaks by producing two year acorns. It has not yet succeeded in doing so, but flowers occasionally appear in the fall, and young acorns set on the twigs. They drop during the winter, and it is not believed that any of them hang till the second season.The range of this tree covers most of the California coast region but does not reach the great interior valleys. The tree is very common in the southwestern part of the state. It is called an evergreen, and some individuals deserve that reputation, but the leaves never remain long after the new crop appears. Frequently the old leaves do not wait for the new, and when they drop, the branches remain bare for a few weeks. The form of the leaf is not constant. Some have smooth margins, but the typical leaf is toothed like holly. One of the early names by which the tree was known was holly-leaved oak. The bark looks much like the bark of chestnut oak. It is bought for tanning purposes, but its principal use is to adulterate the bark of another oak (Quercus densiflora). Trees range in height from twenty-five to seventy-five feet, and from one foot to four in diameter. The trunks are very short, and seldom afford clear lengths exceeding eight feet, and often not more than four. Trees generally grow in the open, but when in thickets, the boles lengthen somewhat. They are of slow growth and live to old age.The wood is hard and brittle. A cubic foot weighs 51.43 pounds when thoroughly dry. The wood of mature trees is reddish-brown; but young and middle aged trunks are all sapwood, and are white from bark to center. When sapwood is exposed to the air a considerable time it changes color and becomes very dark brown. The medullary rays of this oak are broad, fairly numerous, and are darker than the surrounding wood. When the log is quarter-sawed, the exposed flecks of bright surface are the darkest parts. To that extent, it resembles quarter-sawed sycamore, but the woods do not look alike in any other particular. This oak is very porous, and the pores—as is usual with liveoaks—are arranged in rows running from bark to center rather than parallel with the annual rings. No clear line is distinguishable between spring and summerwood.Cordwood constitutes the most important use for California live oak. It rates high in fuel value, and the many large and crooked limbs make the tree an ideal one, from the cordwood cutter’s viewpoint. By carefully ricking the wood, with the crooks and elbows in every possible direction—at which some cordwood cutters are very proficient—a cord of wood may be constructed in the forest, which, when sold and delivered in the buyer’s shed, contracts like an accordion.Canyon Live Oak(Quercus chrysolepis). This splendid California oak bears many names. It is an evergreen, and therefore is called live oak. It is hard when thoroughly seasoned, and this has won for it the name iron oak. Wagon makers often so designate it. It is called Valparaiso oak, but for what reason is not apparent. Black live oak doubtless refers to the dark color of the foliage. The most shapely trees grow in the bottoms of canyons, and the name, canyon live oak, refers to that circumstance. Hickory oak is not an appropriate name, though it doubtless implies that the wood possesses the toughness of hickory. It is about as tough as white oak. The name golden cup oak is a translation of its botanical name which, in Greek, means “golden scale,” a reference to a yellow tomentum or wool which covers the cups of the acorns. The wood’s hardness qualifies it to serve as mauls, hence the name maul oak.The northern limit of its growth is in southern Oregon. It goes south from there on the coast ranges of California and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas to the highlands of southern California. Its growth on the mountains of southern Arizona and New Mexico is always shrubby. The lowest limit of its range is about 1,000 feet above sea level, the best specimens occurring at low altitudes in the sheltered canyons of the coast ranges of California. Gradually diminishing in size, it grows to the very tops of many of the high mountains, sometimes reaching 9,000 feet, being not more than a foot high at the upper limits of its range. In appearance this tree resembles the eastern live oak (Quercus virginiana), having the same majestic wide-spreading crown, except in the high altitudes where it forms dense thickets covering large areas.When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic appearance of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150 feet across, the bole short and thick, and the great branches long and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber Spanish moss that is often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states, but there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs. One hundred and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of crown, one hundred feet being a good average size, and forty or fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes reaches 100. The bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky and pliable and fall off.The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white oak. The tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its two-year acorns which class it in the black oak group. The wood resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds per cubic foot.Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They remain on the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed theirs at the beginningof the second year. The leaves of this tree are peculiar in another way. They assume various forms. That in itself is not unusual and occurs with many species; but the canyon live oak has one pattern of leaf for the young tree, another for the old. One form has a margin with sharp, hooked teeth; another has smooth-margined leaves, and there are various intermediate forms. Sizes vary no less than shapes of both acorns and leaves. Some acorns are half an inch in length, others two inches.The canyon live oak is believed to be long-lived, but further information is desirable. The massive trunks represent centuries. They usually occur in sheltered places which are measurably secure from the ordinary perils which beset trees, notably the woodsman’s ax and the periodic forest fire. The bottoms of canyons where this oak makes choice of situation do not usually burn fiercely, and trees sheltered there escape. Cordwood cutters are the most constant peril to good fuel trees in California; but many a canyon is safe from their invasions, because of lack of roads. There the most magnificent oaks rear their crowns in security, while trees of inferior size and character, which grow on exposed slopes and flats, fall before the cordwood cutter, and go to the ricks in village woodyards.The wood of canyon live oak is superior to that of any other oak in its range. It is of light brown color, and is tough, strong, stiff, and heavy. The trunks are generally unsuitable for sawlogs, being too short, but when a chance tree is found that may be cut into lumber, it is considered a prize. Trunks are seldom good for more than one sawlog. In that respect this oak may be compared with the southern live oak. The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast adds to the value of what may be found there. If the canyon live oak grew in the East, and developed a trunk of the same size and shape as it has in its present home, it would attract no more attention from the users of hardwoods than the live oak in the South attracts now. But place makes great difference.Factories in California do not report the use of much of this oak, yet considerable quantities of it are in service. The most important place found for it is in country and village blacksmith shops, where wagons are repaired. Nearly every piece of wood which goes into a wagon, except the bed, may be this oak. Many persons consider it the best wagon timber on the Pacific coast, and it is particularly valued for tongues, not only for wagons, but for heavy log trucks which are operated by several yoke of oxen. The wood is likewise made into singletrees. It has always been in use in California for pack saddles. That article is small, but many saddles were formerly made, and the pack saddle is still an important article in the mountains. Trains of mules, horses, and burros thread the narrow paths, where wheeled vehicles cannot go, and deliver supplies to camps and mines in remote districts. The pack saddle’s strength is frequently all that intervenes between the load and destruction; for the snapping of a piece of wood may let the pack go over a precipice beyond recovery. The pack trains are slowly passing out of use in the West, as they long ago disappeared from the “bridle paths” of eastern mountains and forests; but they are still to be seen among the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevadas, as in the days when a western poet burst into inspired song of the long pack trains going“Up and down o’er the mountain trailWith one horse tied to another’s tail.”Huckleberry Oak(Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia) is a variety of canyon live oak, and is never large enough to supply wood for any purpose, but is valuable as a covering to the ground on exposed mountains. It is usually a shrub, and specimens no more than a foot high are mature and bear acorns enormously out of proportion to the size of the tree. If the canyon live oak of largest size in the low hills bore acornsproportionately as large, they would be the size of barrels. The huckleberry oak’s acorns are set in their golden cups. The name huckleberry is applied because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are generally less than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch. This unique variety of oak ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler in climbing to the peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees.Palmer Oak(Quercus chrysolepis palmeri) is considered a variety of canyon live oak by some, but Sudworth believes it is a distinct species, and draws his conclusion from forms of leaves, flowers, and fruit. It forms large thickets on foothills and plateaus near the southern boundary of California, eighty miles or more east of San Diego. The trees do not attain sufficient size to give them commercial importance.California live oak branch

This fine western tree belongs to the black oak group, yet its acorns mature in one year, like those of white oaks. It is the only known black oak with that habit. It is properly classed with canyon live oak which has many characteristics of white oak, yet matures its acorns the second year. The two oaks with freakish fruit belong in California, and to some extent occupy the same range. California live oak is apparently making an effort to conform to the habit of other black oaks by producing two year acorns. It has not yet succeeded in doing so, but flowers occasionally appear in the fall, and young acorns set on the twigs. They drop during the winter, and it is not believed that any of them hang till the second season.

The range of this tree covers most of the California coast region but does not reach the great interior valleys. The tree is very common in the southwestern part of the state. It is called an evergreen, and some individuals deserve that reputation, but the leaves never remain long after the new crop appears. Frequently the old leaves do not wait for the new, and when they drop, the branches remain bare for a few weeks. The form of the leaf is not constant. Some have smooth margins, but the typical leaf is toothed like holly. One of the early names by which the tree was known was holly-leaved oak. The bark looks much like the bark of chestnut oak. It is bought for tanning purposes, but its principal use is to adulterate the bark of another oak (Quercus densiflora). Trees range in height from twenty-five to seventy-five feet, and from one foot to four in diameter. The trunks are very short, and seldom afford clear lengths exceeding eight feet, and often not more than four. Trees generally grow in the open, but when in thickets, the boles lengthen somewhat. They are of slow growth and live to old age.

The wood is hard and brittle. A cubic foot weighs 51.43 pounds when thoroughly dry. The wood of mature trees is reddish-brown; but young and middle aged trunks are all sapwood, and are white from bark to center. When sapwood is exposed to the air a considerable time it changes color and becomes very dark brown. The medullary rays of this oak are broad, fairly numerous, and are darker than the surrounding wood. When the log is quarter-sawed, the exposed flecks of bright surface are the darkest parts. To that extent, it resembles quarter-sawed sycamore, but the woods do not look alike in any other particular. This oak is very porous, and the pores—as is usual with liveoaks—are arranged in rows running from bark to center rather than parallel with the annual rings. No clear line is distinguishable between spring and summerwood.

Cordwood constitutes the most important use for California live oak. It rates high in fuel value, and the many large and crooked limbs make the tree an ideal one, from the cordwood cutter’s viewpoint. By carefully ricking the wood, with the crooks and elbows in every possible direction—at which some cordwood cutters are very proficient—a cord of wood may be constructed in the forest, which, when sold and delivered in the buyer’s shed, contracts like an accordion.

Canyon Live Oak(Quercus chrysolepis). This splendid California oak bears many names. It is an evergreen, and therefore is called live oak. It is hard when thoroughly seasoned, and this has won for it the name iron oak. Wagon makers often so designate it. It is called Valparaiso oak, but for what reason is not apparent. Black live oak doubtless refers to the dark color of the foliage. The most shapely trees grow in the bottoms of canyons, and the name, canyon live oak, refers to that circumstance. Hickory oak is not an appropriate name, though it doubtless implies that the wood possesses the toughness of hickory. It is about as tough as white oak. The name golden cup oak is a translation of its botanical name which, in Greek, means “golden scale,” a reference to a yellow tomentum or wool which covers the cups of the acorns. The wood’s hardness qualifies it to serve as mauls, hence the name maul oak.The northern limit of its growth is in southern Oregon. It goes south from there on the coast ranges of California and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas to the highlands of southern California. Its growth on the mountains of southern Arizona and New Mexico is always shrubby. The lowest limit of its range is about 1,000 feet above sea level, the best specimens occurring at low altitudes in the sheltered canyons of the coast ranges of California. Gradually diminishing in size, it grows to the very tops of many of the high mountains, sometimes reaching 9,000 feet, being not more than a foot high at the upper limits of its range. In appearance this tree resembles the eastern live oak (Quercus virginiana), having the same majestic wide-spreading crown, except in the high altitudes where it forms dense thickets covering large areas.When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic appearance of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150 feet across, the bole short and thick, and the great branches long and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber Spanish moss that is often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states, but there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs. One hundred and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of crown, one hundred feet being a good average size, and forty or fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes reaches 100. The bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky and pliable and fall off.The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white oak. The tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its two-year acorns which class it in the black oak group. The wood resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds per cubic foot.Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They remain on the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed theirs at the beginningof the second year. The leaves of this tree are peculiar in another way. They assume various forms. That in itself is not unusual and occurs with many species; but the canyon live oak has one pattern of leaf for the young tree, another for the old. One form has a margin with sharp, hooked teeth; another has smooth-margined leaves, and there are various intermediate forms. Sizes vary no less than shapes of both acorns and leaves. Some acorns are half an inch in length, others two inches.The canyon live oak is believed to be long-lived, but further information is desirable. The massive trunks represent centuries. They usually occur in sheltered places which are measurably secure from the ordinary perils which beset trees, notably the woodsman’s ax and the periodic forest fire. The bottoms of canyons where this oak makes choice of situation do not usually burn fiercely, and trees sheltered there escape. Cordwood cutters are the most constant peril to good fuel trees in California; but many a canyon is safe from their invasions, because of lack of roads. There the most magnificent oaks rear their crowns in security, while trees of inferior size and character, which grow on exposed slopes and flats, fall before the cordwood cutter, and go to the ricks in village woodyards.The wood of canyon live oak is superior to that of any other oak in its range. It is of light brown color, and is tough, strong, stiff, and heavy. The trunks are generally unsuitable for sawlogs, being too short, but when a chance tree is found that may be cut into lumber, it is considered a prize. Trunks are seldom good for more than one sawlog. In that respect this oak may be compared with the southern live oak. The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast adds to the value of what may be found there. If the canyon live oak grew in the East, and developed a trunk of the same size and shape as it has in its present home, it would attract no more attention from the users of hardwoods than the live oak in the South attracts now. But place makes great difference.Factories in California do not report the use of much of this oak, yet considerable quantities of it are in service. The most important place found for it is in country and village blacksmith shops, where wagons are repaired. Nearly every piece of wood which goes into a wagon, except the bed, may be this oak. Many persons consider it the best wagon timber on the Pacific coast, and it is particularly valued for tongues, not only for wagons, but for heavy log trucks which are operated by several yoke of oxen. The wood is likewise made into singletrees. It has always been in use in California for pack saddles. That article is small, but many saddles were formerly made, and the pack saddle is still an important article in the mountains. Trains of mules, horses, and burros thread the narrow paths, where wheeled vehicles cannot go, and deliver supplies to camps and mines in remote districts. The pack saddle’s strength is frequently all that intervenes between the load and destruction; for the snapping of a piece of wood may let the pack go over a precipice beyond recovery. The pack trains are slowly passing out of use in the West, as they long ago disappeared from the “bridle paths” of eastern mountains and forests; but they are still to be seen among the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevadas, as in the days when a western poet burst into inspired song of the long pack trains going“Up and down o’er the mountain trailWith one horse tied to another’s tail.”Huckleberry Oak(Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia) is a variety of canyon live oak, and is never large enough to supply wood for any purpose, but is valuable as a covering to the ground on exposed mountains. It is usually a shrub, and specimens no more than a foot high are mature and bear acorns enormously out of proportion to the size of the tree. If the canyon live oak of largest size in the low hills bore acornsproportionately as large, they would be the size of barrels. The huckleberry oak’s acorns are set in their golden cups. The name huckleberry is applied because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are generally less than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch. This unique variety of oak ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler in climbing to the peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees.Palmer Oak(Quercus chrysolepis palmeri) is considered a variety of canyon live oak by some, but Sudworth believes it is a distinct species, and draws his conclusion from forms of leaves, flowers, and fruit. It forms large thickets on foothills and plateaus near the southern boundary of California, eighty miles or more east of San Diego. The trees do not attain sufficient size to give them commercial importance.

Canyon Live Oak(Quercus chrysolepis). This splendid California oak bears many names. It is an evergreen, and therefore is called live oak. It is hard when thoroughly seasoned, and this has won for it the name iron oak. Wagon makers often so designate it. It is called Valparaiso oak, but for what reason is not apparent. Black live oak doubtless refers to the dark color of the foliage. The most shapely trees grow in the bottoms of canyons, and the name, canyon live oak, refers to that circumstance. Hickory oak is not an appropriate name, though it doubtless implies that the wood possesses the toughness of hickory. It is about as tough as white oak. The name golden cup oak is a translation of its botanical name which, in Greek, means “golden scale,” a reference to a yellow tomentum or wool which covers the cups of the acorns. The wood’s hardness qualifies it to serve as mauls, hence the name maul oak.

The northern limit of its growth is in southern Oregon. It goes south from there on the coast ranges of California and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas to the highlands of southern California. Its growth on the mountains of southern Arizona and New Mexico is always shrubby. The lowest limit of its range is about 1,000 feet above sea level, the best specimens occurring at low altitudes in the sheltered canyons of the coast ranges of California. Gradually diminishing in size, it grows to the very tops of many of the high mountains, sometimes reaching 9,000 feet, being not more than a foot high at the upper limits of its range. In appearance this tree resembles the eastern live oak (Quercus virginiana), having the same majestic wide-spreading crown, except in the high altitudes where it forms dense thickets covering large areas.

When in its favorite habitat, the massive proportions and majestic appearance of this tree are imposing, the crown sometimes being 150 feet across, the bole short and thick, and the great branches long and horizontal. It is not clothed in the somber Spanish moss that is often present on the great live oaks of the southeastern states, but there is a similarity of appearance in the drooping slender twigs. One hundred and fifty feet across is cited as an unusual width of crown, one hundred feet being a good average size, and forty or fifty feet the usual height, although it sometimes reaches 100. The bole is vested in a gray-brown, reddish-tinged bark, about an inch thick, and broken into numerous scales which in old age become flaky and pliable and fall off.

The bark is light colored, and has the stringy character of white oak. The tree would readily pass for a white oak were it not for its two-year acorns which class it in the black oak group. The wood resembles white oak, and weighs 52.93 pounds per cubic foot.

Few oaks, if any, retain their leaves a longer time than this. They remain on the branches three or four years. Most evergreen oaks shed theirs at the beginningof the second year. The leaves of this tree are peculiar in another way. They assume various forms. That in itself is not unusual and occurs with many species; but the canyon live oak has one pattern of leaf for the young tree, another for the old. One form has a margin with sharp, hooked teeth; another has smooth-margined leaves, and there are various intermediate forms. Sizes vary no less than shapes of both acorns and leaves. Some acorns are half an inch in length, others two inches.

The canyon live oak is believed to be long-lived, but further information is desirable. The massive trunks represent centuries. They usually occur in sheltered places which are measurably secure from the ordinary perils which beset trees, notably the woodsman’s ax and the periodic forest fire. The bottoms of canyons where this oak makes choice of situation do not usually burn fiercely, and trees sheltered there escape. Cordwood cutters are the most constant peril to good fuel trees in California; but many a canyon is safe from their invasions, because of lack of roads. There the most magnificent oaks rear their crowns in security, while trees of inferior size and character, which grow on exposed slopes and flats, fall before the cordwood cutter, and go to the ricks in village woodyards.

The wood of canyon live oak is superior to that of any other oak in its range. It is of light brown color, and is tough, strong, stiff, and heavy. The trunks are generally unsuitable for sawlogs, being too short, but when a chance tree is found that may be cut into lumber, it is considered a prize. Trunks are seldom good for more than one sawlog. In that respect this oak may be compared with the southern live oak. The scarcity of good hardwoods on the Pacific coast adds to the value of what may be found there. If the canyon live oak grew in the East, and developed a trunk of the same size and shape as it has in its present home, it would attract no more attention from the users of hardwoods than the live oak in the South attracts now. But place makes great difference.

Factories in California do not report the use of much of this oak, yet considerable quantities of it are in service. The most important place found for it is in country and village blacksmith shops, where wagons are repaired. Nearly every piece of wood which goes into a wagon, except the bed, may be this oak. Many persons consider it the best wagon timber on the Pacific coast, and it is particularly valued for tongues, not only for wagons, but for heavy log trucks which are operated by several yoke of oxen. The wood is likewise made into singletrees. It has always been in use in California for pack saddles. That article is small, but many saddles were formerly made, and the pack saddle is still an important article in the mountains. Trains of mules, horses, and burros thread the narrow paths, where wheeled vehicles cannot go, and deliver supplies to camps and mines in remote districts. The pack saddle’s strength is frequently all that intervenes between the load and destruction; for the snapping of a piece of wood may let the pack go over a precipice beyond recovery. The pack trains are slowly passing out of use in the West, as they long ago disappeared from the “bridle paths” of eastern mountains and forests; but they are still to be seen among the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevadas, as in the days when a western poet burst into inspired song of the long pack trains going

“Up and down o’er the mountain trailWith one horse tied to another’s tail.”

“Up and down o’er the mountain trailWith one horse tied to another’s tail.”

Huckleberry Oak(Quercus chrysolepis vaccinifolia) is a variety of canyon live oak, and is never large enough to supply wood for any purpose, but is valuable as a covering to the ground on exposed mountains. It is usually a shrub, and specimens no more than a foot high are mature and bear acorns enormously out of proportion to the size of the tree. If the canyon live oak of largest size in the low hills bore acornsproportionately as large, they would be the size of barrels. The huckleberry oak’s acorns are set in their golden cups. The name huckleberry is applied because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves to those of huckleberries. They are generally less than one inch in length, sometimes not half an inch. This unique variety of oak ranges on elevated slopes and ridges of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the traveler in climbing to the peaks is often grateful for the privilege of pulling himself up the steep slopes by grasping in his hands the tops of full grown trees.

Palmer Oak(Quercus chrysolepis palmeri) is considered a variety of canyon live oak by some, but Sudworth believes it is a distinct species, and draws his conclusion from forms of leaves, flowers, and fruit. It forms large thickets on foothills and plateaus near the southern boundary of California, eighty miles or more east of San Diego. The trees do not attain sufficient size to give them commercial importance.

California live oak branch

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAKCalifornia tanbark oakCalifornia Tanbark Oak

California tanbark oakCalifornia Tanbark Oak

California Tanbark Oak

CALIFORNIA TANBARK OAK(Quercus Densiflora)Botanists dispute the right of this tree to the name of oak, and some of them refuse to call it an oak. It is admitted that it possesses characters not found in any other oak, but these are important to the botanist only, while laymen have never considered the tree anything but an oak. It has been variously called tanbark oak, chestnut oak, California chestnut oak, live oak, and peach oak. The trunk, branches, and foliage look much like chestnut. The leaf is like the chestnut’s, but it is evergreen. There are three or four crops on the tree at one time, and none fall until they are three or four years old. Young leaves are remarkably woolly, but late in their first summer they get rid of most of the fuzz, and become thick in texture.Tanbark oaks are of all sizes, from mere shrubs on high mountains in the northern Sierra Nevadas to fine and symmetrical timber in the damp climate of the fog belt between San Francisco and the Oregon line. The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than over two feet in diameter.The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby, often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp. It sometimes associates with Douglas fir, and at other times with California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower branches and develops a long, clean trunk; but in open ground it keeps its limbs until late in life.This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast, and up to the present it has been procurable in large quantities. The annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much importance. Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruction of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousandsto rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive. The bark peelers do their principal work in the California redwood region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market, but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has, therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly settled, and wood is plentiful on every side.Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long. Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of the bark peelers, is “the last kick.” A tanbark slashing, when the peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished.Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak is difficult to season. Few woods in this country check as badly as this, when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed. It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discouraging; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of considerable value.The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They run in rows from center to circumference. The medullary rays are broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood’s appearance when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfacesof the rays show a faint purplish or violet tinge which is considered objectionable. But when the wood is worked plain it is dependable and substantial. It makes good flooring, fairly good furniture, finish, vehicles, and agricultural implements. It is perishable when placed in damp situations, and this detracts somewhat from its value as railway ties; but the wood’s porous nature indicates that it will readily yield to preservative treatment.Since the value of the wood is coming to be understood it is to be expected that less of it will be destroyed than formerly, and that second growth will be given opportunity to hold the ground when old stands are cut. The tree is a prolific seeder, but not every year, and seedlings come up abundantly in sheltered places. Sprouts rise from stumps and grow to vigorous trees. It would seem, therefore, that the tanbark oak will hold at least part of the ground where nature planted it.Toumey Oak(Quercus toumeyi). No oak in this country has smaller leaves than this. They are usually less than three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, and they hang on petioles one-sixteenth inch long. The leaves have no lobes or notches. They remain all winter and fall in the spring in time to make room for the new crop. The acorns are nearly as long as the leaves and ripen in June of the first year. Few persons ever see this oak, for its known range is restricted to Mule mountain, in Cochise county, southeastern Arizona. It attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of six or eight inches. The trunk is not only small, but is of form so poor that it can never be of value for anything but fuel. It divides near the ground into crooked branches. The heart of the tree is light brown, the thick sapwood is lighter.Woolly Oak(Quercus tomentella) has apparently been crowded off the American continent and has taken refuge on islands off the southern California coast. As far as known, not a single tree stands on the mainland, but several groves, with a few isolated specimens, are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The leaves are thick, leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees are evergreen. The acorns do not mature until the second season. They are generally more than an inch long. The scarcity of this oak relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods. This seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it possesses excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood. It is decidedly yellow, and is dense and firm. The medullary rays are different from those of any other oak. When seen in cross section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between the rays, and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity, and the largest on the islands are seventy-five feet high and two in diameter.Barren Oak(Quercus pumila) is called dwarf black oak, or simply scrub oak. Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for its common name which some people shorten to “bear” oak. It is one of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldomgrows more than twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range follows the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island, Maine, to North Carolina. It is probably more abundant on the pine barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere. The trunks are too small to be of use for anything but fuel.Price Oak(Quercus pricei) is a California tree, supposed to be very local in its range, since it has not been found outside the drainage basin of a small stream in Monterey county. That locality on the coast of California appears to be the starting place or principal abiding place of several tree species, among which are Monterey cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or less; consequently it is too small to be of value to lumbermen, even if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of California live oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns mature the second season.California tanbark oak branch

Botanists dispute the right of this tree to the name of oak, and some of them refuse to call it an oak. It is admitted that it possesses characters not found in any other oak, but these are important to the botanist only, while laymen have never considered the tree anything but an oak. It has been variously called tanbark oak, chestnut oak, California chestnut oak, live oak, and peach oak. The trunk, branches, and foliage look much like chestnut. The leaf is like the chestnut’s, but it is evergreen. There are three or four crops on the tree at one time, and none fall until they are three or four years old. Young leaves are remarkably woolly, but late in their first summer they get rid of most of the fuzz, and become thick in texture.

Tanbark oaks are of all sizes, from mere shrubs on high mountains in the northern Sierra Nevadas to fine and symmetrical timber in the damp climate of the fog belt between San Francisco and the Oregon line. The average height of mature trees is from seventy to 100 feet, with diameters up to six feet in rare cases, though more trunks are under than over two feet in diameter.

The range of this oak reaches southern Oregon on the north, and runs southward three or four hundred miles along the Sierra Nevada mountains, to Mariposa county, and six hundred miles through the Coast range to Santa Barbara county. The tree is affected by climatic conditions, and where surroundings do not suit, it is small and shrubby, often less than ten feet high. It does best in the redwood belt where fogs from the Pacific ocean keep the air moist and the ground damp. It sometimes associates with Douglas fir, and at other times with California live oak. If it grows in dense side shade it loses its lower branches and develops a long, clean trunk; but in open ground it keeps its limbs until late in life.

This is the most important source of tanbark on the Pacific coast, and up to the present it has been procurable in large quantities. The annual output is nearly 40,000 tons, and it commands a higher price than the bark of any other oak or of hemlock. The absence of other adequate tanning materials on the Pacific coast gives this tree much importance. Its range covers several thousand square miles, and the stand is fairly good on much of it. But on the other hand, the destruction of timber to secure the bark has been excessive. What occurred with chestnut oak and hemlock in the East, is occurring with tanbark oak in the West. Trees are cut and peeled, and are left by thousandsto rot in the woods, or to feed fires and make them more destructive. The bark peelers do their principal work in the California redwood region, because there the oak is at its best. Economic conditions make the salvage of the trunks impossible. The bark can be hauled to market, but the wood is unsalable at living prices, after the long haul. It has, therefore, been usually abandoned, and becomes a total loss. It cannot even be sold for fuel, because the country within reach of it is thinly settled, and wood is plentiful on every side.

Large oaks are felled, because the bark can not be stripped from the trunks in any other way, and small trees are not spared. The peelers often do not take the trouble to cut them down, but strip off the bark as high as a man can reach, and leave them standing. A future tree is thus destroyed for the sake of a strip of bark a few feet long. Such trees live a year or two, sometimes several years, before yielding to the inevitable. Usually, as a last expiring effort, they bear an abnormally large crop of acorns. That performance, in the language of the bark peelers, is “the last kick.” A tanbark slashing, when the peelers are ready to abandon it, is a sorry spectacle. The barkless and sun-cracked trunks strew the ground, the tops and limbs are piled in windrows, the small peeled trees stand dying, and the last ricks of bark have been sledded down the tote roads, marking the close of operations in that district. A few months later, when fire runs through, the end of the tanbark oak on that tract is accomplished.

Within recent years commendable efforts have been made to use the wood as well as the bark. One of the first steps in that direction was to overcome the prejudice against the wood. It was long considered to be valueless. That belief was founded on the single fact that this oak is difficult to season. Few woods in this country check as badly as this, when it is left exposed to sun and wind after the bark has been removed. It checks both radially and along the annual rings. The medullary rays are broad and extend much of the distance from the center to the outside. These are natural lines of cleavage when the log begins to season and the internal stresses develop. It must be admitted that the prospect of making anything out of timber of that character is discouraging; but it has been accomplished, and tanbark oak is now a material of considerable value.

The wood has about the strength and stiffness of white oak, while it is four pounds lighter per cubic foot. The structure is similar to that of California live oak, but the pores of tanbark oak are smaller. They run in rows from center to circumference. The medullary rays are broad enough to show well in quarter-sawing, but the wood’s appearance when so worked is not wholly satisfactory. The exposed flat surfacesof the rays show a faint purplish or violet tinge which is considered objectionable. But when the wood is worked plain it is dependable and substantial. It makes good flooring, fairly good furniture, finish, vehicles, and agricultural implements. It is perishable when placed in damp situations, and this detracts somewhat from its value as railway ties; but the wood’s porous nature indicates that it will readily yield to preservative treatment.

Since the value of the wood is coming to be understood it is to be expected that less of it will be destroyed than formerly, and that second growth will be given opportunity to hold the ground when old stands are cut. The tree is a prolific seeder, but not every year, and seedlings come up abundantly in sheltered places. Sprouts rise from stumps and grow to vigorous trees. It would seem, therefore, that the tanbark oak will hold at least part of the ground where nature planted it.

Toumey Oak(Quercus toumeyi). No oak in this country has smaller leaves than this. They are usually less than three-fourths of an inch long and half an inch wide, and they hang on petioles one-sixteenth inch long. The leaves have no lobes or notches. They remain all winter and fall in the spring in time to make room for the new crop. The acorns are nearly as long as the leaves and ripen in June of the first year. Few persons ever see this oak, for its known range is restricted to Mule mountain, in Cochise county, southeastern Arizona. It attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of six or eight inches. The trunk is not only small, but is of form so poor that it can never be of value for anything but fuel. It divides near the ground into crooked branches. The heart of the tree is light brown, the thick sapwood is lighter.

Woolly Oak(Quercus tomentella) has apparently been crowded off the American continent and has taken refuge on islands off the southern California coast. As far as known, not a single tree stands on the mainland, but several groves, with a few isolated specimens, are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The leaves are thick, leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees are evergreen. The acorns do not mature until the second season. They are generally more than an inch long. The scarcity of this oak relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods. This seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it possesses excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood. It is decidedly yellow, and is dense and firm. The medullary rays are different from those of any other oak. When seen in cross section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between the rays, and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity, and the largest on the islands are seventy-five feet high and two in diameter.Barren Oak(Quercus pumila) is called dwarf black oak, or simply scrub oak. Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for its common name which some people shorten to “bear” oak. It is one of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldomgrows more than twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range follows the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island, Maine, to North Carolina. It is probably more abundant on the pine barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere. The trunks are too small to be of use for anything but fuel.Price Oak(Quercus pricei) is a California tree, supposed to be very local in its range, since it has not been found outside the drainage basin of a small stream in Monterey county. That locality on the coast of California appears to be the starting place or principal abiding place of several tree species, among which are Monterey cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or less; consequently it is too small to be of value to lumbermen, even if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of California live oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns mature the second season.

Woolly Oak(Quercus tomentella) has apparently been crowded off the American continent and has taken refuge on islands off the southern California coast. As far as known, not a single tree stands on the mainland, but several groves, with a few isolated specimens, are found on Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Catalina islands, where they are huddled together in the bottoms of sheltered canyons. The leaves are thick, leathery, and are toothed like holly. The trees are evergreen. The acorns do not mature until the second season. They are generally more than an inch long. The scarcity of this oak relegates it to an unimportant place among commercial woods. This seems unfortunate, for the appearance of the wood indicates that it possesses excellent properties. No other oak looks like this wood. It is decidedly yellow, and is dense and firm. The medullary rays are different from those of any other oak. When seen in cross section they are arranged in short, wavy lines, broadest in the middle and tapering toward both ends. The pores are arranged between the rays, and follow wavy lines also. Trees grow with fair rapidity, and the largest on the islands are seventy-five feet high and two in diameter.

Barren Oak(Quercus pumila) is called dwarf black oak, or simply scrub oak. Its habit of growing on barren land is responsible for its common name which some people shorten to “bear” oak. It is one of the poorest oaks of the East, and it seldomgrows more than twenty-five feet high and a few inches in diameter. Its range follows the Atlantic coast southward from Mount Desert Island, Maine, to North Carolina. It is probably more abundant on the pine barrens of New Jersey than elsewhere. The trunks are too small to be of use for anything but fuel.

Price Oak(Quercus pricei) is a California tree, supposed to be very local in its range, since it has not been found outside the drainage basin of a small stream in Monterey county. That locality on the coast of California appears to be the starting place or principal abiding place of several tree species, among which are Monterey cypress and Monterey pine. The Price oak attains a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of twelve inches or less; consequently it is too small to be of value to lumbermen, even if it were abundant. The leaves resemble those of California live oak, and are believed to remain two summers on the tree. The acorns mature the second season.

California tanbark oak branch

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