1922] A New Oak From the Gulf States 179 



eluding the cup ; the cup from 9-12 mm. wide and not quite as long 

 is almost top-shaped or with slightly rounded sides, the margins thin 

 and closely appressed against the nut, closely gray-canescent and cov- 

 ering about one-third of the ovate nut. 



A tree 20-30 m. in height growing on better drained alluvial lands 

 from the Sabine River in Wood County, Texas, eastward to Winn 

 Parish in Louisiana (type, No. 1128W, from near Hinton, Winn Par- 

 ish, La., in Mr. Ashe's herbarium), with a decidedly tapering usually 

 excurrent trunk 9-12 dm. in diameter, a short bole and rather short 

 spreading branches which form an oblong crown. Bark on trunk steel 

 gray, broken by deep furrows into narrow, flat-topped ridges, rarely 

 exfoliating in thin flakes ; that on the angled limbs and on the branch- 

 lets gray and smoother. 



Common in willow oak flats and also in association with water 

 oak, Quercus ol>t,usa, Q. prinus, Q. shumardii, and white ash. This 

 tree has the general aspect of a post oak of large size, but the crown 

 is prevailingly much narrower and its slender twiggage is very char- 

 acteristic. From Q. steUata it differs in its slender twigs, smaller and 

 thinner foliage, and small dark red-brown and not large tan buds; 

 from Q. margai etta in its shorter and more rusty pubescence, which 

 largely persists on the twigs; and from both in the far smaller nut 

 and cup and shorter petiole of the shade leaves. It resembles in sev- 

 eral particulars Q. stellata paludosa Sarg. (Bot. Gaz. May, 1918, 441) 

 but that is described as having the fruit similar to the fruit of the 

 post oak, whereas according to Ashe's notes, T. J. Gough, of Hinton, 

 La., woods foreman of the Urania Lumber Company, and others, re- 

 gard the smaller acorns as being one character which separates the 

 two trees ; the very slender twigs and white oak-like upper leaves being 

 other distinctive characters. The local name in Texas is water post 

 oak or swamp post oak ; at Hinton, La., it is water oak, Q. nigra there 

 being called pin oak. Louisiana State Forest Ranger C. N. Bilbray 

 regarded the larger trees in Middle Creek swamp, Natchitoches Parish, 

 La., as white oaks. 



Washington, D. C. 



