302 OAK FAMILY. 



§ 1. Sterile flowers with a distinct 4 - 7-lobed calyx and 3-20 slender stamens : fertile 



flowers 1 - 4 i« a cup or bur-like involucre. 

 « Sterile flowers clustered in slender catkins : their bracts inconspicuous or deciduous. 



1. QUERCUS. Stamens 3 - 12. Fertile flower only one in the bud-like involucre, 



which becomes a scaly cup. Stigma 3-lobed. Nut (acorn) terete, with a firm 

 shell, from which the thick cotyledons do not emerge in gemiination. (Les- 

 sons, p. 130, fi^. 299; p. 13, fig.-21, 22.) 



2. CASTANEA. Stamens 8-20. Fertile flowers few (commonly 3) in each in- 



volucre, one or more ripening; stigmas mostly 6 or 7, bristle-shaped. Nuts 

 coriaceous, ovoid, when more than one flattened on one or both sides, en- 

 closed in the hard and thick very prickly bur-like at length 4-valved invo- 

 lucre. Cotyledons somewhat folded together and cohering, remaining under 

 ground in germination. 



* * Sterile flowers in small heads on drooping peduncles. 



3. FAGUS. Calyx of sterile flowers bell-shaped, 5 - 7-cleft, containing 8-16 long 



stamens, fertile flowers 2 together on the summit of a scaly-bracted pe- 

 duncle; the innermost scales uniting form the 4-lobed involucre: ovary 

 3-celled when young, crowned by 6 awl-shaped calyx-teeth and a 3-cleft or 

 3 thread-like styles: in fruit a pair of sharply 3-sided nuts in the 4-cleft soft- 

 prickly rigid involucre. Cotyledons thick, somewhat crumpled together, but 

 rising and expanding in genninatiou. (Lessons, p. 11, fig. 13-15.) 



§ 2. Sterile flowers consisting of a few short stamens partly adhering to the bract, 

 and destitute of any proper calyx; the anthers l-celled : fertile flowers in 

 pairs under each bract of a head, spike, or short catkin, each with one or two 

 bractlets, forming afoliaceous or sac-like involucre to the nut. Sterile catkins 

 rather dense. 



4. CORYLUS. Scales of the sterile catkin consisting of a bract to the inside of 



which 2 bractlets and several stamens adhere. Feitile flowers in a little 

 head, like a scaly bud: stigmas 2, long and red. Nut rather large, bony, 

 wholly or partly enclosed in a leaf-like or tubular and cut-lobed or toothed 

 involucre. 



5. OSTRYA. Scales of the sterile catkin simple. Fertile flowers in a sort of 



slender catkin, its bracts deciduous, each flower an ovarj' tipped with 2 long 

 slender stigmas and enclosed in a tubular bractlet, which becomes a bladdery 

 greenish-white oblong bag, in the bottom of which is the little nut: these 

 together form a sort of hop-like fruit. 



6. CARPINUS. Sterile catkin as in Ostrya. Fertile flowers in a sort of slender 



loose catkin; each with a pair of separate 3-lobed bractlets, which become 

 leaf-like, one each side of the small nei'ved nut. 



1. QUERCUS, OAK. (The classical Latin name.) Flowers in spring; 

 acorns ripe in autumn. All but one of the following species are natives 

 of the country. 



§ 1 . Annualfruited Oaks, the acoi-ns maturing the autumn of the first year, there- 

 fore on the wood of the season, usuai/g in the axil of the leaves, out of 

 lohich they are often raised on a peduncle : kernel commonly sweet-tasted : 

 no bristles on the lobes or teeth of the leaves. 

 * White Oaks, ivith lyrately or sinuately pinnatifid and deciduous leaves. 

 +•• European tree, more or less planted eastward. 

 Q. R6bur, European or English Oak. Belongs to the same section 

 with our White Oak ; but leaves smaller, not glaucous beneath, sinuate-lobed, 

 but hanlly pinnatifid ; acorn oblong, over 1' long, — one or a few in a cluster 

 which is nearly sessile in the axils in var. sessilifloka, — raised on a slender 

 peduncle in var. i'kdunculata. 



-I- H- Native species : leaves pale or whitish beneath. 



Q. 41ba, White Oak. Rich soil : large tree with whitish bark ; leaves 

 soon smooth, bright green above, whitish beneath, with 3-9 oblong or linear 

 obtuse and mostly entire oblicjuc lobes ; the shallow rough cup very much 

 shorter than the ovoid-oblong (about 1' long) acorn ; seed edible. 



Q. obtusiloba, Post Oak, Rotich or Box Whitk Oak. Small tree in 

 barren soil, commonest S., with very durable wood ; thickish leaves grayish 



