372 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. ` 
crooked trunks a few inches in diameter ; but in the south I have 
met with specimens forty feet or more in elevation, with straight 
trunks of proportionable thickness to their stature, branching into 
fine, symmetrical cones of the richest verdure. The Black Jack, 
so called from the colour of its deeply rifted bark, which looks as 
if it had been charred by fire, is one of the most curious and not 
the least beautiful of the American Oaks, though valuable only as 
fuel, the wood being porous and not durable. The contrast be- 
tween the dark, shining green of its huge pear-shaped leaves, and the 
delicate ferruginous tint of their downy undersides, recommends 
it strongly to the notice of the cultivator. It might possibly 
succeed with us as a shrub (a form it frequently assumes even in 
the south) on poor soils, or such as the Scotch Fir delights in, 
but could scarcely be expected to ripen its acorns, which are not 
generally abundant even in its native country. In the southern 
States I remarked the leaves to vary from the usual, rounded, and 
entire form, to acutely angular and even lobed, so as to have the 
air of a different species. The principal ribs of the dilated 
summit of the leaf are, in this last variety, prolonged into subu- 
late points of considerable length, which at other times are very 
short or nearly obsolete. Amongst the Oaks above mentioned, 
the Barren White, or Post Oak (Q. ob£usi/oba) was frequent, but 
of very diminutive stature: this, in a more congenial soil and 
climate, is one of the most distinct, as well as magnificent and 
valuable of the American Oaks, coming next to the Live and 
White Oaks (Q. virens and Q. alba) in the strength and dura- 
bility of its timber, and singularity of its foliage, which is deep 
green above, grey white underneath, very firm, and coriaceous. 
In the moister and less barren spots, or in the deep swamps, 
and along the streams which intersect this singular region, I 
remarked the Tupelo, or Sour-gum (Nyssa sylvatica, N. multi- 
flora, Walt,) White Birch (Betula populifolia), which has entirely 
the aspect of the common European species (B. alba), and is 
probably identical with it; Alder (Alnus serrulata, A. incana, 
Willd. var.?) never rising to more than a shrub from Canada to 
Louisiana; Holly (Mex opaca), here and there only, and of very 
. 
