260 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



entire lobes, the lateral lobes sometimes slightly lobed, when they unfold bright red 

 above, pale below and coated with soft pubescence, soon becoming silvery white and 

 very lustrous, at maturity thin, firm, glabrous, bright green and lustrous or dull 

 above, pale or glaucous below, 5'-9' long, 2'-^' broad, with stout bright yellow mid- 

 ribs, conspicuous primary veins, turning late in the autumn deep rich vinous red, 

 gradually withering and sometimes remaining on the branches nearly through the 

 winter; their petioles stout, glabrous, ^' V long. FIo^vers: staminate in hirsute or 

 nearly glabrous aments 2|'-3' long; calyx bright yellow and pubescent, with acute 

 lobes; pistillate bright red, their involucral scales broadly ovate, hirsute, about as 

 long as the ovate acute calyx-lobes. Fruit sessile or raised on a slender peduncle 

 l'-2' long, the two forms sometimes appearing on the same branch; acorn ovoid to 

 oblong, rounded at the apex, lustrous, |' long, green when fully grown, becoming 

 light chestnut-brown, inclosed for about one fourth its length in the cup-shaped cup 



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coated with pale or light brown tomentum, its scales at the base much thickened, 

 united and produced into short obtuse membranaceous tips, and thinner toward the 

 rim of the cup. 



A tree, 80-100 high, with a trunk 3-4 in diameter, tall and naked in the forest, 

 short in the open, and surmounted by a broad round-topped head of stout limbs 

 spreading irregularly, small rigid branches, and slender branchlets at first bright 

 green, often tinged with red, and coated with a loose mass of long pale or ferrugine- 

 ous deciduous hairs, reddish brown during the summer, bright red and lustrous or 

 covered with a glaucous bloom during their first winter, becoming ultimately ashy 

 gray. "Winter-buds broadly ovate, rather obtuse, dark red-brown, about ^' long. 

 Bark light gray slightly tinged with red or brown, or occasionally nearly white, 

 broken into thin appressed scales, becoming on old trunks sometimes 2' thick and 

 divided into broad flat ridges. "Wood strong, very heavy, hard, tough, close-grained, 

 durable, light brown, with thin light brown sap wood; used in shipbuilding, for con- 

 struction and in cooperage, the manufacture of carriages, agricultural implements, 

 baskets, the interior finish of houses, cabinet-making, for railway-ties and fences, 

 and largely as fuel. 



