2C2 



SYLVA AMERICANA. 



open texture renders it unfit for any use except to contain dry 

 wares ; but in districts where oak wood is rare, recourse is had 

 for other purposes, to several species of inferior quality, which 

 are still preferred to the birch, the beech and the pine. Thus 

 the gray oak is employed for the knees of vessels and for 

 cartwrighis' work ; it is even preferred to that of the red oak, as 

 being stronger and more durable. 



Water Oak. Quercus aquatlca. 



The Water Oak abounds 

 in Virginia, the lower part 

 of the Carolinas and Georgia 

 and in East Florida. Under 

 the name of Water Oak it 

 is sometimes confounded 

 with Willow Oak, by which 

 it is always accompanied in 

 the ponds and narrow swamps 

 inclosed in the pine-barrens. 

 This tree is inferior in 

 size to the willow oak, and 

 rarely exceeds 40 or 45 feet 

 in height, and 12 or 18 inches 

 in diameter. On full-grown 

 trees the leaves are smooth, 

 shining, and heart-shaped or 

 broad and rounded at the summit and terminated in an acute 

 angle at the base. In the severe climate of Virginia they fall 

 with the first frost, but on the sea-shore of the Carolinas, Georgia, 

 and Florida, they persist during two or three years. There is 

 no oak in the United States of which the foliage is so variable 

 and so different from that of the tree, on the young stocks and 

 on the sprojrts from an old trunk or from the base of a limb that 

 has been lopped : the leaves are commonly oval and deeply and 

 irregularly toothed. The flowers appear in the month of May, 



plate lxxiv. 



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



