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 beginning of 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.