_ 
164 CUPULIFERS. [ Quercus — 
toothed. Staminodes minute or none.. Ovary after fecundation 
more or less perfectly 3-celled, rarely 4-5-celled ; styles 3-5, short, 
ovules 2 in each cell. Fruit, an ovoid globose or depressed 1-celled 
nut, seated on or enclosed in and attached by its broad base or by 
its whole surface to an involucre of imbricating hard bracts. 
Seeds 1-2, testa membranous, cotyledons plano-convex, thick, 
fleshy, smooth, grooved, lobed or ruminate, radicle minute.—Species 
about 300, in temperate and tropical regions. There are no wild 
oaks in 8. India or Ceylon, and the genus is absent from 8. America, 
Trop. and 8. Africa and Australia. 
Q@.incana, Roxb. Hori. Beng. 104; Fl. Ind. wi, 642 ; Brandis 
For. Fl. 482 ; Ind. Trees 626 ; F. B. I. v, 603 ; Wait E. D. ; Comm. 
Prod. Ind. 911; King in Ann. Bot. Gard. ii, 26, t. 20 ; Kanjilal 
For. Fl. (ed. 2), 402 ; Gamble Man. 675 ; Collett Fl. Siml. 475.— 
Vern. Ban, banj (N. W. Him.).—White or grey oak. 
A medium-sized or large evergreen tree up to 80 ft. high ; young shoots 
hoary or woolly. Leaves coriaceous, pinkish when young and woolly 
all over, 3-6 in. long, oblong or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, mucro- 
nate-serrate, glabrous above, densely white-tomentose beneath ; 
main lateral nerves 14-20 pairs, straight, parallel, prominent beneath. 
Mate flowers softly pubescent, in slender drooping catkins 2-4 in. 
long. Perianth 4-5-lobed. Anthers glabrous. Frm. flowers axillary, 
sessile, usually in clusters of 2-5. Styles linear-clavate, spreading. 
Cup axillary, solitary or clustered, 4 in. in diam., embracing half the 
conico-ovoid nut when ripe. Nut 4—1 in. long, white-tomentose 
when young, at length glabrous and brown. ; 
Dehra Dun, in the Mothronwala swamp, at an elevation of 1,900 ft. A 
few specimens of this tree planted many years ago on a shady spot in 
the Government Garden at Saharanpur managed to survive the 
tropical heat during several summers. Disrris.: W. Himalaya 
from the Indus to Nepal at 2-8,000 ft. It also occurs in the neigh- 
bourhood of Chitral in the N. W. Frontier Province, as well as on 
the Punjab Salt range and on the Shan hills of Upper Burma. The 
tree is very common on the outer ranges of the W. Himalaya and is 
often gregarious. It is frequently associated with Rhododendron 
arboreum, Pieris ovalifolia (ayar) and occasionally with deodar. The 
wood is used as fuel and for making charcoal. The bark contains a 
large percentage of tannin, and the leaves are much used as cattle 
fodder 
