II. 1. THE CHESTNUT OAK. 137 



Sp. 5. The Chestnut Oak. Quercus castanea. Muhlenberg. 



Leaves and fruit figured in Michaux ; Sylva, Plate 10, and in Plate 5, of this 



volume. 



This graceful tree is distinguished from the rock chestnut 

 oak, by its narrower leaves, more nearly resembling those of the 

 chestnut tree, and having sharper teeth, and by its smaller fruit. 



I have found only a few straggling individuals, and at first 

 took them for varieties of the tree last mentioned. I was struck 

 with their beauty, but I have been able to learn nothing in regard 

 to the peculiar qualities of the wood as fuel, or as timber, or of 

 the bark, as it is, wherever found, confounded with the rock 

 chestnut oak, and, together with that, known by the name of 

 chestnut oak. Several trees of this group are, in all the States 

 where they grow, confounded with each other by the common 

 people. And the elder Michaux, who viewed them with the 

 discrimination of a botanist, and with a wealth of observation 

 which could afford not to multiply species, considered them as 

 varieties of the one species, Primus. The younger Michaux 

 makes this a distinct species, and points out some striking 

 peculiarities. He says that the wood is of a very yellow color, 

 that it grows only in fertile valleys, and that its bark separates 

 in sheets, like that of the swamp white oak. The texture of 

 the wood also differs in having more numerous, and irregularly 

 disposed flakes of silver grain, than in any of the other oaks. 

 Whoever has been in the habit of examining many trees and 

 varieties of wood, will be willing to admit that these differences 

 are not greater than we meet with in trees acknowledged to be 

 of the same species. These trees must be raised, side by side, 

 from seed, before we can be sure of their essential distinction. 



The younger Michaux considered the banks of the Delaware 

 as the northeastern limit of this oak, which he found most 

 abundant in some parts of Pennsylvania and Tennessee. I 

 have found it growing about Mount Agamenticus, and, farther 

 north, on the banks of the Saco River, in York County, Maine. 

 In this State, I have found it in Lancaster, Sterling, Russell, 

 and Middleborough. 

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