420 CrPULIFERiE. (oak family.) 



Order 128. CUPULIFERJE. (Oak Family.) 



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



leaves, and d oecious apetalous flowers. Sterile flowers in pendulous 



slender or capitate aments. Calyx scale-like, or regular and 1 - 6-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- 

 c< lied, with 1-2 pendulous anatropous ovules in each celL Stigmas as 

 many as the cells. Fruit 1-eelled, 1-seedcd. Albumen none. Cotyle- 

 dons thick and fleshy. Radicle superior. 



Synopsis. 



* Fertile flowers single, or few in a cluster. 



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



2. CASTAN EA. Nuts 1-3, enclosed in a 4-valved spiny involucre ; sterile aments elongated, 



en ct. 



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



aments capitate, pendulous. 



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



# * Fertile flowers spiked. 



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



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



1. QUERCUSJ L. Oak. 



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

 Stamens 6- 12, slender: anthers 2-celled. Fertile flowers axillary, solitary, or 

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

 Ovules 2 in each cell. Stigmas obtuse. Nut (Acorn) oblong or hemispherical, 

 partly (rarely wholly) enclosed in the cup-shaped scaly involucre. Cotyledons 

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

 Stipules caducous. 



§ 1. Fruit biennial. 

 * Lturis entire, short-petioled ; those on vigorous shoots often lol>ed 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 flatfish, enclosing the base of 

 the hemispherical nut. — Margins of swamps and streams, Florida to Missis* 



B.ppi, and northward.— A slender tree, 40° -50° high. 



Var. laurifolia. (Q. laurifolia, Michx.) Leaves larger (8'-4' long), 

 oblong-lanceolate; enp deeper and more pointed al the base. — Light uplands, 



Florida to X'.nli Can. linn. — A tree commonly larger than the preceding. 



Var. arenaria. (Q myrtifolia, WiBdt) Shrubby (4° -8° high) ; Leaves 

 small ( ', '- i '. ' Long), rigid, oblong or obovate, obtuse or barely pointed, with the 

 margins revolute. — Dry sand ridges, along the coast of Florida and Georgia. 



2. Q. imbricarirt, Michx. (Shivolb-Oax ) Leaves lanceolate-oblong, 

 ucutc or obtuse at each cud, mucronate, pale and downj beneath, deciduous; 



