144 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



resemble in color and consistency, enclosing a portion of fibrous, 

 fleshy substance. This gradually shrinks to a brown, spongy 

 mass, with a small woody kernel in the centre, and a thin, brit- 

 tle, drab-colored shell. They are produced by an insect punc- 

 turing the healthy leaf, and depositing therein an egg, about 

 which the apple forms. "A single grub lives in the kernel, 

 becomes a chrysalis in the autumn, when the oak apple falls 

 from the tree ; changes to a fly in the spring, and makes its 

 escape out of a small round hole, which it gnaws through the 

 kernel and shell. . . . The name of this insect is Cynips con- 

 fluentus."* 



The black oak, far the most valuable of its group, is found 

 in the southern part of Maine and in New Hampshire, and is 

 more abundant in the eastern part of Massachusetts than any 

 other oak, except the white and the scarlet. From the latter 

 it is not usually distinguished, while standing, except by ship- 

 builders. When felled, it is known by its thicker bark. It 

 does not often attain a large size, being seldom found over four 

 feet in diameter, and from forty to sixty feet high. In the 

 Middle and Western States, it rises to the height of eighty or 

 ninety feet, with a diameter of five feet or more. It is of a 

 rapid growth, and flourishes even on poor soils. 



A yellow bark oak, in Sterling, on a rocky hill on the lands 

 of Mr. Stewart, measured, at the ground, thirteen feet in cir- 

 cumference ; at three feet, nine ; at six, eight feet one inch. It 

 rises at least thirty feet in a straight, undivided column, with- 

 out a limb and with a gradual taper. It then begins to branch, 

 and terminates at a goodly height, in a roundish head of few 

 branches. 



Sp. 9. The Scarlet Oak. Quercus coccinea. Wangenheim. 



The fruit is figured in Michaux ; Sylva, Plate 24 ; leaves on Plate 25 ; leaves 

 and fruit on Plate 9, of this volume. 



This handsome tree is almost every where known by the 

 name of the red oak, and is thence confounded with a tree 

 which is inferior to it in every valuable property. The trunk 



* Harris's Report, p. 397. 



