420 cupuLiFER^. (oak family.) 



Order 128. CUPULlFERiE. (Oak Family.) 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate entire or lobed straight-veined stipulate 

 leaves, and monoecious apetalous flowers. Sterile flowers in pendulous 

 slender or capitate ameuts. Calyx scale-like, or regular and 4 - G-lobed. 

 Stamens few. Fertile flowers single or clustered, furnished with an invo- 

 lucre which encloses the fruit, or forms a cup at its base. Ovary 2-7- 

 celled, with 1-2 pendulous anatropous ovules in each cell. Stigmas as 

 many as the cells. Fruit 1-celled, 1-seeded. Albumen none. Cotyle- 

 dons thick and fleshy. Radicle superior. 



Synopsis. 



* Fertile flowers single, or few in a cluster. 



1. QUERCDS. Nut solitary, with the base enclosed in a scaly involucre. 



2. CASTANEA. Nuts 1-3, enclosed in a 4-Talved spiny involucre ; sterile amenta elongated, 



erect. 



3. FAGUS. Nuts 2, 3-angled, enclosed in a somewhat spiny 4-valved involucre : sterile 



aments capitate, pendulous. 



4. CORYLUS. Nut soUtary, bony, enclosed in a leafy lacerated involucre. 



* » Fertile flowers spiked. 



5. CARPINUS. Nuts 1 -2, in the axil of an open leafy involucre. 



6. OSTIIYA. Nut solitary, enclosed in a membranaceous inflated involucre. 



1. QUEBCUS, L. Oak. 



Sterile amcnt slender, bractless, pendulous. Calyx unequally 6 - 8-parted. 

 Stamens 6- 12, slender : anthers 2-celk'd. Fertile flowers axiUary, solitary, or 

 few in a cluster. Calyx 6-cleft or denticulate, adnate to the 3 - 4-celled ovary. 

 Ovules 2 in eadi cell. Stigmas obtuse. Nut (Acor?)) oblong or hemispherical, 

 partly (rarely wholly) enclosed in tiie cup-sliaped scaly involucre. Cotyledons 

 very thick, plano-convex. — Trees or shrubs, with simple entire or lobed leaves. 

 Stipules caducous. 



§ 1. Fruit hiennial. 

 * L(:ares entire, short-pet ioled ; those on vujorous shoots often lobed or toothed. 



1. Q. Phellos, L. (Willow-Oak.) Leaves (2'- 3' long) lanceolate or 

 linear-lanceolate, bristle-awned, scurfy, like the branchlets, when young, becom- 

 ing smooth on both sides; fruit small, sessile; cup flattish, enclosing tiie base of 

 tlie hemispherical nut. — Margins of swamps and streams, Florida to Missis- 

 sippi, and'northwai-d. — A slender tree, 40° - .'30° high. 



Var. laurifolia. (Q. laurifolia, Miehi.) Leaves larger (3' - 4' longl, 

 oblong-lanccohitc ; cup deeper and more pointed at tiie base. — Liglit uplands, 

 Florida to North Carolina. — A tree commonly larger than the preceding. 



Var. arenaria. (Q myrtifolia, n7/W ?) Shruhl)y (4° - 8° high) ; leaves 

 small (A'- 1^' long), rigid, oblong or ol)Ovate, olituse or l)arely pointed, with the 

 margins rcvolutc. — Dry sand ridges, along tiie coast of Florida and (ieorgia. 



2. Q. imbricaria, Mlchx. (Suinolk-Oak ) Leaves lanccolate-oblong, 

 acute or obtuse at each end, nmcronate, pale and dowtiy beneath, deciduous; 



