FAGACE^ 



223 



filaments and oblong anthers, and a minute hirsute rudimentary ovary; the pistillate 

 on shorter simple or panicled aments or scattered at the base of the staminate 

 inflorescence, the cymes urrounded by an involucre of imbricated scales; calyx 

 urn-shaped, the short limb divided into 6 obtuse lobes; abortive stamens inserted 

 on the limb of the calyx and opposite its lobes; ovary sessile on the thin disk, 

 3-celled after fecundation, with 3 spreading styles terminating in minute stigmas, 

 and 2 ovules in each cell attached to its interior angle. Fruit maturing at the end 

 of the second season, its involucre inclosing 1-3 nuts, ovoid or globose, sometimes 

 more or less depressed, rarely obscurely angled, dehiscent or indehiscent, covered 

 by stout spines, tuberculate or marked by interrupted vertical ridges; nut more 

 or less angled by mutual pressure when more than 1, often pilose, crowned with 

 the remnants of the style, marked at the base by a large conspicuous circular 

 depressed scar, the thick shell tomentose on the inner surface. Seed usually solitary 

 by abortion, bearing at the apex the abortive ovules; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, 

 farinaceous. 



Castanopsis inhabits California with one species, and southeastern Asia where it is 

 distributed with about twenty-five species from southern China to the Malay Archi- 

 pelago and the eastern Himalayas. 



Castanopsis, from Kacrrava and o-^is, in allusion to its resemblance to the Chestnut- 

 tree. 



1. Castanopsis chrysophylla, A. DC. Chinquapin. Golden-leaved 



Chestnut. 



Leaves lanceolate or oblong, gradually narrowed at the ends or sometimes ab- 

 ruptly contracted at the apex into short broad points, entire, with slightly thickened 

 revolute margins, when they unfold thin, coated below with golden yellow persistent 

 scales and above with scattered white scales, at maturity thick and coriaceous, dark 



green and lustrous above, 2'-6' long, ^' to nearly 2' broad, with stout midribs raised 

 and rounded on the upper side, turning yellow at maturity and falling gradually at 

 the end of their second or in their third year; their petioles \'-y long; stipules 

 ovate, rounded or acute at the apex, brown and scarious, puberulous, \'-\' long. 

 Flovrers appearing irregularly from June until February in the axils of broadly 

 ovate apiculate pubescent bracts on staminate and androgynous scurfy stout-stemmed 



