1883.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHTLADELPIIIA. 3t 



ON QUEKCUS DURANDII Buckley. 

 BY CHARLES MOHR. 



The rediscovery of this fine tree in Alabama adds now definitely 

 another one to the number of oaks known to inhabit the forests 

 east of the Mississippi River. First discovered by Prof. Buckley 

 in 1841 in Wilcox County, Alabama, it was described from spec- 

 imens collected near Austin, Texas, twenty years afterwards. I 

 had occasion to study the tree in several localities in its western 

 home during my investigations of the forest growth of south- 

 western Texas, in December, 1880; subsequentl}^ I directed mj'' 

 attention to its rediscovery in the eastern Gulf region, and par- 

 ticulai'ly in Alabama. After a fruitless search through three 

 seasons, I was finallv rewarded at the close of the one just passed, 

 in finding this oak in the woods covei'ing the limestone ridges 

 bordering the Little Cahabe River in Bibb County, Alabnma. 



The largest of the trees observed measured 2 feet in diameter 

 by an estimated height of about 70 feet. The trunk divides at a 

 height from 30 to 35 feet above the ground ; the heavy ])rimary 

 limbs are erect, tall, and the head of the tree is of an oblong 

 shape ; it resembles in the habit of growth greatly the white oak ; 

 the bark is close, more so than in the Texan tree, where it is found 

 inclined to be somewhat flaky, of a bright, almost pure white 

 color, b}' which it is at once distinguished from the latter. There 

 is scarcely a tree which shows greater variation in the size and 

 shape of its leaves, which were at the date of its rediscovery, lltli 

 November, for the greatest part shed. Only on some late, vig- 

 orous slujots, was the foliage 3'et fresh and green found to pei'sist. 

 The leaves are short petioled, from 2 to 3i inches in length, and 

 from ^ to 2i inches at their greatest width, always attenuated at 

 the base. They are either rcnindish, ovate or obovate towards 

 the apex, largely dilated, irregularly and obtusely, more or less 

 deeply three-lobed, or narrowed to lanceolate with shallow, distant 

 lobes, a mere wavy or entire margin. Of a firm texture, tlie leaves 

 are pubescent along the veins beneath when older, with a fine, 

 close, pale tomentum. 



The fruit is of annual maturation and (at least during this 

 season) produced in abundance, short peduncled to sessile, single, 

 in jiairs or in clusters of three and four ; small, from three-eighths 



