FAGACE^ 



261 



Distribution. Sandy plains and gravelly ridges, rich uplands, intervales, and 

 moist bottom-lauds, sometimes forming nearly pure forests; southern Maine to 

 southwestern Quebec, westward through southern Ontario, the lower peninsula of 

 Michigan, and southern Minnesota to southeastern Nebraska and eastern Kansas, 

 and southward to northern Florida and the valley of the Brazos River, Texas; most 

 abundant and of its largest size on the western slopes of the southern Alleghany 

 Mountains, and on the bottom-lands of the lower Ohio basin. 



26. Quercus lobata. Nee. White Oak. Valley Oak. 



Leaves oblong to obovate, deeply 7-11 obliquely lobed, rounded at the narrowed 

 apex, narrowed and wedge-shaped or broad and rounded or cordate at the base, the 

 lateral lobes obovate, obtuse or retuse, or ovate and rounded, thin, 21-3' or rarely 

 4' long, l'-2' broad, dark green and stellate-pubescent above, pale and pubescent 

 below, with stout pale midribs, and conspicuous yellow veins running to the slightly 

 thickened and revolute margins; their petioles stout, hirsute, 1'-^' long. Flowers: 

 staminate in hirsute aments 2'-3' long; calyx light yellow and divided into 6 or 8 

 acute pubescent ciliate lobes; pistillate solitary, sessile or rarely in elongated few- 

 flowered spikes, their involucral scales broadly ovate, acute, coated with dense pale 

 tomentum, about as long as the narrow calyx-lobes. Fruit solitary or in pairs, 

 nearly sessile; acorn conical, elongated, rounded or pointed at the apex, 1^-2^^' long. 



r 



bright green and lustrous when fully grown, becoming bright chestnut-brown, usu- 

 ally inclosed for about one third its length in the cup-shaped cup coated with pale 

 tomentum on the outer surface, usually irregularly tuberculate below, all but the 

 much-thickened basal scales elongated into acute ciliate chestnut-brown free tips 

 longest on the upper scales and forming a short fringe-like border to the rim of the 

 cup. 



A tree, often 100 high, with a trunk generally 3-4, but sometimes 10 in diam- 

 eter, divided near the ground or usually 20-30 above it into great limbs spread- 

 ing at wide angles and forming a broad head of slender branches hanging gracefully 

 in long sprays and sometimes sweeping the ground; less frequently with upper limbs 

 growing almost at right angles with the trunk and forming a narrow rigid head of 



