14 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



Black or Yellow-Tjark Oak. 



Quercus velutina — Lam- 

 Quercus tinctoria — Bart. 



The range of growth of this species of the 

 oak family is from the southern coast of 

 Maine through Vermont, southward to the 

 northern parts of Florida, westward into On- 

 tario and parts of Minnesota, through east- 

 ern Kansas, Indian Territory and 

 eastern Texas. 



It is known as black oak in Ver- 

 mont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 

 New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Delaware, Virginia, West 

 Virginia, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Flor- 

 ida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, 

 Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ne- 

 braska, Michigan, Wisconsin, Min- 

 nesota and Ontario; quercitron oak 

 in Delaware, South Carolina, Louis- 

 iana, Kansas and Minnesota; yel- 

 low oak in Ehode Island, New 

 York, Illinois, Texas, Kansas and 

 Minnesota; tanbark oak in Illinois; 

 yeUow-bark oak in Minnesota 

 and Bhode Island; spotted oak in 

 Missouri; dyer's oak in Texas; and 

 yellow butt oak in Mississippi. 



The variety of oak of which this 

 article treats is the most common 

 species of the red or black oak 

 group which is found along the 

 Bouth Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It 

 is often found scattered along dry 

 ridges, among maritime pine 

 growth, but also grows luxuri- 

 antly on the bottom lands and 

 swamp country of the entire lower 

 Mississippi valley. Again, it is 

 found in the foothills of the south- 

 ern Appalachian range in consider- 

 able profusion. It reaches its 

 maximum development throughout 

 the lower Ohio valley and Missis- 

 sippi basin. 



Black oak grows to a height 

 varying from seventy to one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet, with a trunk 

 3 to 4 feet in diameter; having a 

 narrow, open head, the slender 

 branches spreading out gradually. 

 The leaf is somewhat thin, and is 

 very dark green when mature, 

 with a yellowish tinge on the lower 

 surface, and becoming a dull, rich 

 red in autumn; it drops from the 

 tree during the winter. The leaf is usually 

 seven-lobed, and the lobes serrate, armed 

 with bristles. 



The staminate flowers grow on pubescent 

 stems four to six inches long; the calyx is 

 coated with light hairs; the pistillate ones 

 grow on short peduncles; the stigmas are 

 bright red. The fruit of black oak is an 

 acorn, contained in a deep cup, very rough 



THIRTY-FIFTH PAFEB. 



and having a jagged rim. The kernel is 

 bright yellow and bitter. The acorns grow 

 in pairs or clusters of three, on short stems. 

 The inner bark of this tree is bright yel- 

 low and is saturated with tannin, from 

 which is produced a well-known dye called 

 quercitron. A valuable medicinal agent is 

 also made from the bark. The outer cover- 



TYPICAL FOREST GROWTH BLACK OR YELLOW-BARK 

 OAK, YAZOO DELTA, MISSISSIPPI. 



ing is dark brown or nearly black, broken 

 up into close scales. 



This type of oak, which in general com- 

 mercial classification is a variety of red 

 oak, constitutes the larger portion of red 

 oak growth of the Mississippi valley. How- 

 ever, in its different environments and vary- 

 ing soil conditions it shows a wonderful 

 diversity of physical characteristics. The 



better qualities growing on ridges often ap- 

 proximate in quality the red oak {Quercus- 

 rubra), of the North. On the other hand, 

 in sections where it abounds in low, rich, 

 swamp country, it is not of nearly so high a 

 type. Instead of being soft and easily 

 worked, it shows but a small percentage of 

 clear lumber, sometimes dries out hard and 

 flinty, checks badly in seasoning, 

 and often dries out thinner in some 

 places than in others. 



Generally speaking, the wood of 

 black oak is heavy, hard and 

 strong. The medullary rays are 

 thin and the annual layers of 

 growth strongly marked. The 

 heart-wood is a light, reddish 

 brown; the sapwood much lighter. 

 The grain is usually coarse. A 

 cubic foot of the seasoned wood 

 weighs approximately forty-five 

 pounds. 



Black oak is used extensively in 

 both cooperage and construction 

 work and affords a substitute for 

 the red oak of the North in a 

 large number of furniture manu- 

 facturing institutions, but often 

 its physical characteristics are such 

 that it is not nearly so valuable. 



The photograph from which the 

 illustration of black oak accom- 

 panying this article was made, is 

 of a typical specimen in the Yazoo 

 delta country of Mississippi. It 

 will be noted that the general ap- 

 pearance of the tree is very fine, 

 but on its being felled, it was 

 found that owing to the richness 

 and wetness of the soU, the tree 

 had grown very fast and that 

 heart seams prevailed to an extent 

 that precluded its showing more 

 than fifteen per cent of firsts and 

 seconds when sawed into lumber. 

 Generally speaking, low, wet, rich, 

 heavy soil is not the natural hab- 

 itat of the oak. Oak of the finest 

 type grows on high ground of 

 not unusual richness, and its qual- 

 ity is due to the very fact of its 

 necessarily slow growth. 



Apropos of the great variation in 

 the quality of timber of the same 

 botany growing under different 

 conditions of soil, rainfall, latitude 

 or compensating altitude, there is 

 perhaps no genus that exhibits the marked 

 differences in this particular as does the oak. 

 Ohio is a state which for a century has been 

 noted for its high class oak growth, yet in 

 some sections of that state an apparently 

 slight variation in soU produces a character 

 of oak growth that does not equal in value 

 the oak in other sections by from $10 t<j 

 $15 a thousand. 



