CHAP. CV. CORYLA‘CER. QUE’RCUS. 1877 
the name of Q. bicolor, of which the plate of this tree in our last 
Volume is a portrait. 
§ " Ribra. Red American Oaks. 
Sect. Char. Leaves deeply lobed, sinuated, multifid, and mucronated. Bark 
dark, and not scaling off. Fructification biennial. Nut ovate, with a per- 
sistent style. Cup imbricate, large in proportion to the nut. Trees, varying 
from.80 ft. or 90 ft. to 15 ft. or 20 ft. in height ; remarkable for the bright 
red, deep scarlet, or dark purple, of their foliage, when it dies off in autumn. 
Perhaps most of the kinds in this section might be reduced to two or three 
species ; but, as they come up tolerably true from seed, we have considered 
it more convenient for the cultivator to treat them as distinct. The har- 
diest and most rapid-growing, and at the same time the most elegant and 
ornamental, tree of the section is Q. paldstris, which, with its spreading 
drooping branches, and its straight erect trunk and spiry top, is, indepen- 
dently of its lively scarlet, orange, and red colours in spring and autumn, in 
our opinion, the most graceful of all oaks, either European or American. 
#14. Q. ru‘BRA L. The red, or Champion, Oak. 
Identification. Lin. Sp. Pl., 1413.; Willd. Sp. PL, 4. p.445.; Ait. Hort. Kew., 5. p. 292. ; Pursh 
Fl. Amer. Sept., 2. p. 630.; Michx, Quer., No. 20.; Smith in Abb. Ins., 2. p. 105.; N. Du Ham., 7. 
p. 170.; Smith in Rees’s Cycl., No. 60. 
Synonyme. Q. E’sculi divisura, &c., Pluk. Phyt., t. 54. f. 4. 
Engravings. Pluk. Phyt., t. 54. f. 4.; Michx. Quer., t. 35, 36.; North Amer. SyL, 2. t. 28.; our jfigs. 
1740. to 1744. ; and the plates of this species in our last Volume. 
Spec. Char., §c. Leaves smooth, oblong, sinuated, on long stalks ; lobes acute 
sharply toothed, bristle-pointed. Calyx of the fruit flat underneath. 
Nut ovate. (Willd.) A tree 80 ft. or 90 ft.in height. Introduced in 1739. 
Varieties. Aiton, in the Hortus Kewensis, 2d ed., mentions two varieties : Q. 
rubra latifolia, the champion oak, which is the Q. rubra of Linnzus; and Q. 
rubra montana, the mountain red oak. 
Description, §c. The red oak is, in America, a tall widely spreading tree, 
frequently more than 80 ft. high, and with a trunk 3 ft. or 4 ft. in diameter. 
The bark is comparatively smooth, of a dark colour, very thick; and, though in 
old trees it cracks, yet it never scales off as in the sections A’lbz and Prinus. 
The wood is reddish and coarse-grained ; and its pores are often so large as 
to admit the entrance of a hair. The leaves, when they first come out in spring, 
are of a fine sulphur colour; when fully expanded, they are smooth and 
shining on both sides, large, deeply laciniated, and sometimes slightly rounded 
at the base, especially on old trees; and, before they fall, they turn of a 
deep purplish red. According to the younger Michaux, the leaves on old 
trees often nearly resemble those of Q. faleita. The leaves of Q. falcata 
are, however, always downy beneath; while those of Q. ribra are smooth. 
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