DENDROLOGY. 



209 



PLATE LXXVII. 

 Fig. 3. A leaf. Fig. 2. The fruit. 



Black Jack Oak. Qiicrcus ferruginca. 



The Black Jack Oak is 

 first seen near Allentown in 

 New Jersey ; but it is 

 smaller and less multiplied 

 in this place than farther 

 south. In New Jersey and 

 Pennsylvania it is called 

 Barrens Oak, and Slack 

 Jack Oak in Maryland and 

 the more Southern States. 

 This species is commonly 

 found upon soils composed 

 of red, argillaceous sand 

 mingled with gravel, and so 

 meagre as to be totally 

 exhausted by five or six 

 crops, when they are thought 

 worthy of cultivation. 

 The black jack oak is sometimes 30 feet high and 8 or 10 

 inches in diameter, but commonly does not exceed half these 

 dimensions. Its trunk is generally crooked, and is covered with 

 a very hard, thick and deeply-furrowed bark, of which the 

 epidermis is nearly black, and the cellular integument of a dull 

 red. The summit is spacious even in the midst of the woods. 

 The leaves are yellowish, and somewhat downy at their unfolding 

 in the spring ; when fully expanded, they are of a dark green 

 above, rusty beneath, thick, coriaceous, and dilated towards the 

 summit like a pear. In autumn they turn reddish, and fall with 

 the earliest frost. This tree fructifies once in two years. The 

 flowers are put forth in the month of May and are succeeded by 

 large acorns, half covered with scaly cups. 



When the stock of this tree is more than eight inches in 

 diameter, the wood is heavy and compact ; but coarse-grained 

 and porous before it has reached this size. As it speedily decays 

 when exposed to the weather, it is not used in the arts, but it 

 forms excellent fuel. 



