FAGACEAE. — QUERCUS 225 
This Oak is common as a shrub on exposed limestone cliffs and in rocky places 
generally throughout western Hupeh and eastern Szech’uan between altitudes of 
from 800 to 2500 m. and is colloquially known as the “ Chi-kang shu.” The bushes 
grow 1-5 m. tall and are very densely and intricately branched. Under favorable 
conditions it develops into a small tree 10 m. tall with a short, thick trunk, sharply 
ascending-spreading branches and slender pendent branchlets, the whole forming 
a shapely oval crown. 
The young leaves are usually more or less densely clothed on the under side with 
a loose felt of yellow-brown to yellowish gray hairs which disappears early, but occa- 
sionally they are practically glabrous even when not fully unfolded. This variation 
in degree of pubescence on the young leaves and its early disappearance reconciles 
the diverse statements of Franchet and von Seemen. The basal half of the midrib on 
the under surface of the leaf is always clothed with a dense gray felt of villose hairs. 
The leaves are dark green, strongly bullate and normally quite entire, though they 
are often coarsely dentate and spiny, and persist until the summer of the second 
season. The fructification is biennial and the fruit is pedunculate in the axils of the 
lower leaves of its season’s growth. Henry’s No. 10217, referred by Skan to Q. 
semicarpifolia var. glabra, differs only in the leaves being slightly less bullate and 
rather larger than in the Hupeh form, which may be owing to different ecological 
conditions. The fructification is clearly biennial, so it cannot belong where Skan 
placed it, since in that species the fructification is annual. Where the specimens 
ag on which Franchet based the variety cannot be stated without seeing 
em. 
Pictures of this Oak will be found under Nos. 566 and 571 of the collection of 
Wilson’s photographs and also in his Vegetation of Western China, No. 434. 
Quercus acrodonta Seemen in Bot. Jahrb. XXIII. Beibl. No. 57, 48 
(1897); XXIX. 290 (1900). 
Quercus phyllireoides Franchet in Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris, sér. 2, VII. 85 
(Pl. David. 1. 275) (non Gray) (1884). 
a Ilez, var. phyllireoides Franchet in Jour. de Bot. XIII. 152 (pro parte) 
899). 
Quercus Ilex, var. acrodonta Skan in Jour. Linn. Soc. XXVI. 516 (1899). — 
Koidzumi in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXVI. 160 (1912). 
Western Hupeh: Hsing-shan Hsien, ravine, alt. 1300 m., June 8, 
1907 (No. 3644; tree 5 m. tall, girth 0.3, one only seen); Ichang and 
neighborhood, A. Henry (Nos. 2954, 2954», 3425); without locality, 
A. Henry (No. 7619). 
This Oak grows on the limestone cliffs in western Hupeh, but is rare. It isa 
small, densely branched evergreen tree or large bush. The leaves are shining 
green above and persist for two seasons, and the fructification is biennial, subsessile 
and subterminal in the axils of the uppermost leaves of its current season’s growth. 
It is very closely related to Q. phillyraeoides Gray, and further knowledge may prove 
t to be only a variety of that species. The close-matted, interwoven felt of pale 
gray hairs on the under side of the leaf and the midrib slightly impressed near the 
base of the leaf serve to distinguish it, and since it has a name we think it is best, 
at present, to consider it distinct. 
