164 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
8. ALNUS Hill. Aper. 
Shrubs or small trees with thin toothed leaves; sterile catkins with 4 or 5 bract- 
lets and 3 flowers upon each scale; fertile catkins ovoid or ellipsoid, the scales each 
subtending 2 flowers and a group of 4 small scales, the latter becoming woody in 
fruit, wedge-obovate. 
KEY TO THE SPECIES. 
Leaves rounded to truncate at the base, somewhat lobed, ovate to 
broadly oblong; stamens 4................ 00.0.0 eee e ee eee 1. A. tenuifolia, 
Leaves usually cuneate or at least narrowed at the base, seldom 
lobed, the younger ones lanceolate, the older elliptic or ob- 
long; stamens 1 to 3, usually 2............2...........2... 2. A.oblongifolia. 
1. Alnus tenuifolia Nutt. N. Amer. Sylv. 1: 32. 1842. 
Type Locauity: ‘‘On the borders of small streams within the Range of the Rocky 
Mountains, and afterwards in the valleys of the Blue Mountains of Oregon.”’ 
RaneGe: British America to California and New Mexico. 
New Mexico: Tunitcha Mountains; Cedar Hill; Chama; Santa Fe and Las Vegas 
mountains. Along streams, in the Transition Zone. 
The powdered bark of the alder, together with ashes of Juniperus monosperma and 
a decoction of Cercocarpus montanus, were used by the Navahos in preparing a 
red dye for wool. 
2. Alnus oblongifolia Torr. U.S. & Mex. Bound. Bot. 204. 1859. 
Alnus acuminata H. B. K, err. det. many authors. 
Type Locauity: Banks of the Mimbres and near Santa Barbara, New Mexico. 
Type collected by Wright (no. 1864). 
Rance: Southern Arizona and New Mexico. 
New Mexico: Magdalena Mountains; Mogollon Mountains; Black Range. Along 
streams, in the Transition Zone. 
33. FAGACEAE. Beech Family. 
1. QUERCUS L. Oak. 
Low shrubs or large trees with rough bark on the older stems and hard tough wood; 
leaves chlorophyll green and deciduous, or bluish or grayish green and persistent 
almost or quite until the appearance of the leaves of the following season, of various 
shapes, size, and texture, generally short-petioled, mostly more or less stellate- 
pubescent at some time; flowers moneecious, the staminate usually in slender pendu- 
lous aments, the pistillate solitary or in few-flowered spikelike aments, appearing 
with the leaves; fruit (acorn) a nut varying in shape and size with the species, the 
cup being also of varying size and shape. 
The treatment here given follows that of Doctor Rydberg,! and much of the work 
was done in consultation with him, while examining a rather extended series of New 
Mexican specimens. The species listed cover the material at New York and Wash- 
ington and that in the herbarium of the New Mexico Agricultural College. With the 
use of this material is combined the field experience of Doctor Rydberg and the 
authors, extending over a number of years of careful study of the genus. . 
The attitude here assumed is that forms represented by numerous individuals that 
are easily distinguishable in the field and herbarium are worthy of separate names. 
Whether one calls them species or subspecies matters little; we prefer the former and 
the forms are so treated here. 
1 The Oaks of the Continental Divide. Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 2: 187. 1901. 
