142 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



diverging, bearing recurved stigmas, issuing from an ovary 

 which is surrounded by the fringed points of four to six seg- 

 ments of a perianth, all densely covered with down. 



The acorn is small, of a flattened, globose shape, sometimes 

 beautifully striped with longitudinal bars of yellow and brown, 

 in a very deep cup, of a brilliant orange within, lengthened 

 downwards and gradually diminishing. The scales are free 

 at their extremities, near the acorn, and waving. The kernel 

 is of a yellowish or faint orange color, and very bitter. 



The leaves are borne on long, rather slender, usually downy 

 footstalks, inclined to yellowish green. They are inversely 

 egg-shaped in their general outline, obtuse and unequal, rarely 

 acute at base ; on old trees, deeply cut by about three sinuosi- 

 ties on each side ; on young and vigorous shoots, particularly 

 on sprouts from a stump, more nearly entire. The lobes are 

 usually broader, and the sinuosities less deep than in the scarlet 

 oak. The lobes often enlarge towards the extremities, render- 

 ing the sinuses somewhat ovate : the primary and secondary 

 veins end commonly in bristles. The surface is often dusty 

 with a fine down above, still shining, and sometimes, in old 

 leaves, smooth ; beneath, downy, when young ; smooth, or 

 nearly smooth, when old, except at the axils of the veins, which 

 are almost always downy. The color is usually much darker 

 than that of the leaves of the scarlet oak, and the texture is 

 thicker. They are often spread beneath with a ferruginous 

 down, accumulated at the axils of the veins.* Late in autumn, 

 the leaves become of a rich, yellowish brown, or russet, or rus- 

 set-orange. 



There are three pretty distinct varieties of the black oak. 

 The first has its leaves full and almost entire, and running 

 down along the footstalk ; the second has leaves almost exactly 



* Those figured by the elder Michaux are precisely such as can be always found 

 on the young, lower, vigorous sprouts of the black oak. Pursh, Nuttall and Beck 

 fall into the mistake, while evidently speaking of this same tree, of describing its 

 leaves as not deeply lobed. Pursh says, "levissime sinuatis." Now, leaves of this 

 shape can always be found, and are characteristic of this tree. But the greater 

 part of the leaves, on old trees, are very deeply lobed, almost as much so as those 

 of the scarlet oak, and much more than the leaves of the red oak. 



