136 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



found smaller ones, with four or five teeth, or perfectly entire. 

 The leaves, in fading, become of a light, leather yellow. 



The buds are short, roundish, and obtuse. In May, the male 

 blossoms appear in great numbers, on threads two or three 

 inches long, from the base of the new shoots, or from lower buds, 

 which produce them only. There are about four stamens in 

 each flower. In the axil of the tender, just expanding leaves, 

 the female blossom appears, single or in twos, on a footstalk 

 of half or two-thirds of an inch in length. 



The footstalk lengthens, late in the season, to two or three 

 inches, and bears one or two very broad, roundish-ovate, pointed 

 acorns, in deep, broad, hemispherical cups, rough, and some- 

 times ragged and mossy without, with the projecting points of 

 the scales, from whose union the cup is formed. 



The fruit is sweet, not abundant, but more so usually than 

 that of the white oak. 



There are many varieties of this tree, differing strikingly in 

 the smoothness of the bark, in the shape of the leaves, some- 

 times narrow and somewhat deeply lobed, in the roughness of 

 the acorn cup, and the character of the branches. They are 

 not often handsome, usually offending the eye with the rough- 

 ness and scaliness of the bark, and the scragginess of the 

 branches. But there are exceptions ; and some of the varieties 

 are fine, shapely trees. 



The wood of the swamp white oak is of a brownish color, 

 heavy, compact, and fine-grained, and possesses great strength 

 and elasticity. It approaches in value to that of the white oak. 

 By boat-builders it is sometimes preferred. It seems to have, 

 in an inferior degree, the properties which distinguish that 

 wood, and forms an excellent substitute. It has considerable 

 toughness, so that hubs are sometimes made of it. 



This tree grows to a large size. I have seen stumps which 

 measured five feet and more in diameter. But I have not mea- 

 sured many large trees. One, a third part of a mile from the 

 great elm, on the land of Mr. Jaquith, Newbury, growing in a 

 wet, clayey soil, measured, in 1839, twelve feet and one inch 

 in circumference, at four feet from the ground. 



