FAGACE^ 



271 



Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in moist fertile soil; southern 

 Maine to northern Vermont and southwestern Quebec, westward through Ontario 

 and the southern peninsula of Michigan to southeastern Iowa and western Missouri, 

 and southward to the District of Columbia, northern Kentucky and Arkansas, and 

 along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia; widely scattered, usually in 

 small groves but nowhere very abundant; most common and of its largest size in 

 western New York and northern Ohio. 



34. Quercus Michauxii, Nutt. Basket Oak. Cow Oak. 



Leaves broadly obovate to oblong-obovate, acute or acuminate at the apex, with 

 short broad points, wedge-shaped or rounded at the broad or narrow entire base, 

 regularly crenately lobed, with oblique rounded entire lobes sometimes furnished 

 with glandular tips, or rarely entire, with undulate margins, when they unfold bright 

 yellow-green, lustrous and pubescent above, coated below with thick silvery white 

 ferrugineous tomentum, at maturity thick and firm or sometimes membranaceous, 



pic^. 2^0 



especially on young and vigorous branches, dark green, lustrous, glabrous or occa- 

 sionally roughened by scattered stellate hairs on the upper surface, more or less 

 densely pubescent on the pale green or silvery white lower surface, 6'-8' long, 3'-5' 

 wide, turning in the autumn dark rich crimson; their petioles stout, \'-'^\' long. 

 Flowers: staminate in slender hairy aments 3'-4:' long; calyx light yellow-green, 

 pilose, with long pale hairs, and divided into 4-7 acute lobes; pistillate in few-flow- 

 ered spikes on short peduncles, coated like their involucral scales with dense pale 

 rufous tomentum; stigmas dark red. Fruit solitary or in pairs, sessile or subsessile, 

 or borne on short stout puberulous stalks rarely \' long; acorn oval or ovate, -with 

 a broad base, and acute, rounded, or occasionally truncate at the apex surrounded by 

 a narrow ring of rusty pubescence, or sometimes pilose nearly to the middle, bright 

 brown, rather lustrous, V-\\' long, f'-l|' broad, inclosed for about one third its 

 length in the thick cup-shaped cup often broad and flat on the bottom, reddish brown 

 and pubescent within, hoar^'-tomentose and covered on the outer surface by regularly 

 imbricated ovate acute scales rounded and much thickened on the back, their short 

 tips sometimes forming a rigid fringe-like border to the rim of the cup; seed sweet 

 and edible. 



