FAGACE^ 265 



conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets, turning dull yellow or brown in the autumn; 

 their petioles stout, pubescent, ^' to nearly 1' long. Flo"wers: staminate in ameuts 

 3'-4' long; calyx hirsute, yellow, usually divided into 5 ovate acute laciniately cut 

 segments; anthers covered by short scattered pale hairs; pistillate sessile or stalked, 



their involucral scales broadly ovate, hirsute; stigmas bright red. Fruit sessile or 

 short-stalked; acorn oval to ovate or ovate-oblong, broad at the base, obtuse and 

 naked or covered with pale persistent pubescence at the apex, ^'-1' long, ^'-f ' broad, 

 sometimes striate, with dark longitudinal stripes, inclosed for one third to one half 

 its length in the cup-shaped turbinate or rarely saucer-shaped cup pale and pubescent 

 on the inner surface, hoary-tomentose on the outer surface, and covered by thin 

 ovate scales rounded and acute at the apex, reddish brown and sometimes toward 

 the rim of the cup ciliate on the margins, with long pale hairs. 



A tree, rarely 100 high, with a trunk 2-3 in diameter, and stout spreading 

 branches forming a broad dense round-topped head, and stout branchlets coated at 

 first, like the young leaves and petioles, the stalks of the aments of staminate 

 flowers and the peduncles of the pistillate flowers, with thick orange-brown tomen- 

 tum, light orange color to reddish brown, and covered by short soft pubescence 

 during their first winter, ultimately gray, dark brown, or nearly black or bright 

 brown tinged with orange color; usually not more than 50-60 tall, with a trunk 

 l-2 in diameter, and at the northeastern limits of its range generally reduced to 

 a shrub. Winter-buds broadly ovate, obtuse or rarely acute, ^'-\' long, with 

 bright chestnut-brown pubescent scales coated toward the margins with scattered 

 pale hairs. Bark ^'-1' thick, red more or less deeply tinged with brown, and divided 

 by deep fissures into broad ridges covered on the surface with narrow closely appressed 

 scales. Wood very heavy, hard, close-grained, durable in contact with the soil, 

 difficult to season, light or dark brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely 

 used for fuel, fencing, railway-ties, and sometimes in the manufacture of carriages, 

 for cooperage, and in construction. 



Distribution. Cape Cod and islands of southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

 and Long Island, New York to northern Florida and southern Alabama and Missis- 

 sippi, and from New York westward to Missouri, eastern Kansas, the Indian Terri- 

 tory, and Texas ; most abundant and of its largest size on dry gravelly uplands in 



