264 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



shrub renders it easy for bears, deer and swine to reach them by 

 lifting their heads or rising on their hinder feet. 



The presence of this oak is considered as an infallible index 

 of a barren soil, and it is usually found on dry, sandy land 

 mingled with gravel. It is too small to be adapted to any use in 

 the arts or for fuel. It might probably be usefully adopted in 

 the Northern States for hedges, which might be formed by 

 sowing the acorns in furrows from twenty to twenty-four inches 

 thick, which in a few years would be sufficient to prevent the 

 passage of horses and cattle. 



Upland Willow Oak. Quercus cinera. 



The Upland Willow Oak is confined to the maritime parts of 

 the Southern States. It is little multiplied in comparison with 

 many other species, and is dispersed in small groups in the forests 

 of white pine. It is found also upon the sea shore, and upon the 

 islands where it covers tracts of several acres still more barren 

 than the main. But the stocks which grow in these different 

 situations are so different in appearance that they might easily 

 be mistaken for distinct species. 



In the pine-barrens this tree is 18 or 20 feet high, and 4 or 5 

 inches in diameter. The leaves are tw T o inches and a half long, 

 entire and whitish beneath ; on the islands and on the shore 

 of the continent, where the soil is extremely dry, they are only 

 three or four feet in height, and the leaves are denticulated, are 

 an inch in length, and persist for two years. Its fructification is 

 biennial and it flowers in the month of May. The acorns, which 

 are contained in shallow cups, are round and blackish with the 

 base of a bright rose color when freshly exposed. 



The upland willow oak is one of those abject trees that succeed 

 the pines on lands which have been cleared for cultivation and 

 abandoned on account of their sterility. In these places as in the 

 pine-barrens, it is 20 feet in stature, and its trunk, which is 

 covered with a thick bark, begins at a third of this height to 

 divide itself by numerous ramifications. In the spring it is 



