128 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



are perfectly and beautifully regular. These differences mark 

 varieties which, when trees come to be as highly valued and as 

 carefully studied here, as they are in England, will receive names. 

 I have met with many of these varieties which would be worth 

 cultivating for their peculiar beauty. In autumn, the leaves 

 turn to a pleasant purple or violet color, very different from 

 that of most other leaves. Many of these remain on through 

 the winter, making in this tree the nearest approach to the 

 evergreen oaks of warmer climates. The buds are small, short, 

 rounded, and invested with several indistinct scales. The male 

 flowers are on a long and very slender thread, each cup con- 

 taining from four to seven stamens. 



The acorns vary much in size and sweetness, and somewhat 

 in shape. They are usually about an inch long, ovoid, oblong, 

 in a shallow, somewhat flattened, hemispherical cup, of a gray- 

 ish color, rough externally, with roundish tubercles. They 

 grow single or in pairs, on a footstalk, from half an inch to an 

 inch long, fixed to the years' shoots. 



The fruit is seldom abundant, not oftener, it is commonly 

 thought, than once in seven years ; and I have looked through an 

 extensive forest of white oaks, at the season when the fruit was 

 to be expected, without finding an acorn. The fruit is eagerly 

 sought for by many wild animals, and is not unpleasant to the 

 taste, especially when roasted. 



Michaux says, that he found the white oak as far north as 

 the latitude of 46° 20'; as far south as latitude 28° 11/, and 

 towards the west to the country of the Illinois. We know that 

 it extends much farther to the west. He thinks it more multi- 

 plied in the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania than in 

 any other parts of the United States. Mr. Douglas considers 

 Lake Winipeg its northern limit, and says, that it attains there 

 a height of ten to twenty feet. 



It is found in every part of this State, although very rarely in 

 the western, where its place is taken by the rock maple, and most 

 abundantly, and of the largest size, in Essex County. It grows 

 well on a great variety of soils, but best on a moderately high, 

 moist, loamy soil, particularly in sheltered situations, as on the 

 southern sides of hills. No tree is more affected by the wind 



