258 



SYLVA AMERICANA. 



QUERCUS. 



Moncecia Polyandria. Link, AmentaceiB. Juss. Astringent, tonic, emollient. 



White Oak. Qucrcus alba. 



Throughout the United 

 States and Canada this tree 

 is known by the name of 

 White Oak. The environs 

 of a small town of Trois 

 Rivieres in Canada, lati- 

 tude 46 20', and the 

 lower part of the river 

 Kennebeck in the state of 

 Maine are the most northern 

 points at which this tree 

 grows. Thence we trace it 

 along the sea shore to a 

 distance beyond Cape Can- 

 naveral, latitude 28 degrees, 

 and westward from the ocean 

 to Illinois, an extent of more 

 than 1200 miles from north-east to south-west. It is, however, by 

 no means equally diffused over this vast tract ; in the state of 

 Maine, Vermont and Lower Canda, it is little multiplied, and its 

 vegetation is repressed by the severity of the winter. In the 

 lower part of the Southern States, in the Floridas and Lower 

 Louisiana, it is found only on the borders of the swamps with a 

 few other trees which likewise shun a dry and barren soil. The 

 white oak is observed also to be uncommon on lands of extraor- 

 dinary fertility, like those of Kentucky and Tennessee, and of all 

 the spacious valleys watered by the western rivers. It abounds 

 chiefly in the Middle States, particularly in that part of Pennsylva- 

 nia and Virginia which lie between the Alleghanies and the Ohio, a 

 distance of about 150 miles, where nine-tenths of the forests are 



PLATE LXXI. 

 Fig. 1. A leaf. Fig. 2. The fruit. 



