52 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CUPULIFER 2. 
Quercus pagodefolia inhabits rich bottom-lands and the alluvial banks of streams, and is 
distributed from southeastern Virginia! to northern Florida,’ and through the Gulf states and 
Arkansas* to southern Missouri, western Tennessee and Kentucky, and southern Mlinois and Indiana, 
and is probably most abundant in the river-swamps of the Yazo basin and of eastern Arkansas, of 
which it is one of the largest and most valuable timber-trees. 
The wood of Quercus pagodefolia is light reddish brown and unusually close-grained for that 
of one of the Black Oaks, with comparatively small open ducts and thin sapwood, and is valued by 
lumbermen almost as highly as white oak.* 
Quercus pagodefolia is one of the largest American Oaks; and few North ee trees are 
more beautiful either in the dense forests which cover the alluvial bottom-lands of the Mississippi 
basin, where its tall shafts tower high above its humbler companions, or on the banks of the Congaree 
or the Savannah, where its great branches spread far from the massive trunk and the ample leaves 
fluttering in the wind display first the dark green and then the silvery whiteness of their two surfaces. 
also, Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. v. 80; xvii. 413. — Garden 
and Forest, viii. 101, f. 16.) Later Mr. W. W. Ashe found this 
Oak-tree near Raleigh, North Carolina, and has shown that it is 
the Quercus falcata, var. pagodafolia, of Elliott. 
the bark and wood and the shape of the leaves with their silvery 
The character of 
white lower surface serve to distinguish this tree from all the 
forms of Quercus digitata. That tree grows only on dry and usually 
sterile uplands, while Quercus pagodefolia is a constant inhabitant 
of river-bottoms often inundated during several months of every 
year and of rich river banks, in all the great region which it is 
now known to inhabit, and I follow Mr. Ashe in considering it a 
species. 
1 Quercus pagodefolia was collected near Virginia Beach, Vir- 
ginia, in May, 1900, by Mr. C. E. Faxon. 
2 Quercus pagodefolia was collected by Mr. A. H. Curtiss near 
Chattahoochee, Florida, September, 1884. r 
3 Quercus pagodefolia was collected at Fulton, Arkansas, in May, 
1900, by Mr. B. F. Bush (No. 243). 
+ The specimen cut near Mt. Carmel, Illinois, by Dr. J. Schneck 
for the Jesup Collection of North American Woods in the Ameri- 
can Museum of Natural History, New York, is thirty-two inches in 
diameter inside the bark and one hundred and eight years old, with 
nine layers of sapwood, which is an inch and an eighth in thick- 
ness. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Pratt DCCXXII. QuERcUS PAGODHFOLIA. 
. A flowering branch, natural size. 
. A staminate flower, enlarged. 
. A fruiting branch, natural size. 
1 
2 
3. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
4 
5 
. A winter branchlet, natural size. 
