DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF QUERCUS AND CASTANEA. 175 
ment that the fruit-involuere of Quercus is indehiscent is invalidated by. 
Q. fagiformis, Q. cuspidata, and other, or indeed probably all. Chlamy- 
dobalani, in which. it splits at maturity ; and the pericarp, which is said 
to be always coriaceous, is lapideous or osseous in Q. cornea (the Shi-li, 
or Stony Chestnut,” of the Chinese) and other species. 
of our Hongkong Corylacee, the largest leaves I have seen measuring 
14 inches, and they are covered beneath, densely when young and more 
or less so at full maturity even, with what cannot be more accurately de- 
scribed than in the words used by Zuccarini, when writing of Q. cuspidata, 
as an *' integumentum tenuissimum, ad lentem lepidoto-filamentosum, " 
of an ochraceous or golden colour. Its fruit-branches are 3-6 inches 
in length, and the involucre has about 5 zones, with sinuated margins 
rising and falling in a very irregular manner, and with obsolete thickened 
teeth, so that they have as it were an eroded appearance. The same 
structure occurs less conspicuously in Q. lancifolia, Roxb., and. is ob- 
viously a modification or extension of the annuli of the short-cupped 
completely concealed the acorn, splits at maturity with tolerable regu- 
larity into 3-5 divisions, close to the base or point of attachment of the 
nut, and is densely covered internally with greyish. silky tomentum. 
The fruit is ovoid, of a rich bright-brown outside, exactly like the horse- 
chestnut, and clothed with thick fulvous or ferruginous down inside, 
rugulose, pale, flat base (ilum carpicum). he cotyledons are most 
intricately plicated, and the testa, which is of a pale-fulvous hue and 
woolly, penetrates throughout all their convolutions, so that a transverse 
section of the seed exhibits one of the most striking examples of ru- 
mination known to me, being even more conspi than in the nutmeg. 
The species was first. characterized by the late Colonel (then Major) 
Champion, in 1854, in Hooker's ‘ Journal of Botany’ (vol. v. p- 114), 
* The village of Wongneichung is at the head of the Happy pig The two 
names are used synonymously ; but in the map accompanying Mr. Beni] f 
Hongkongensis,” the former is erroneously transferred to a small place sitnated on the 
east side of Causeway Bay, the Chinese name of which I cannot at this moment 
