SILVA 



OF 



NORTH 



AMERICA. 



QUERCUS. 



Flowers unisexual or rarely perfect, monoecious, apetalous, in unisexual or an- 



drogynous spikes or aments 



aly 



4 to 7-lobed, the lobes imbricated in aestiyation 



stamens generally 6 ; pistillate flower surrounded by an involucre of imbricated scales ; 

 ovary inferior, usually incompletely 3-celled ; ovules 2 in each cell, ascending or 

 descending. Fruit a nut surrounded at the base or embraced in the accrescent woody 

 involucre. Leaves alternate, annual, or perennial, penniveined, stipulate. 



Quercus, Linnaeus, Gen. 291 (1737). — Adanson, Fam. PI 

 ii. 375. — A. L. de Jussieu, Gen. 410. — Endlicher, Gen. 



274. 



Meisner, Gen. 346. — Baillon, Hist. PI. vi. 256. 



Bentham & Hooker, Gen. iii. 407. — Prantl, Engler & 



Pflanzenfc 



Ned 



Endlicher, Gen. 275. — Me 



Synaedrys, Lindley, Introd. Nat. Syst. ed. 2, 441 (1836). 



Meisner, Gen. 346. — Hance, Hooker Jour. Bot. and Kew 



Gard. Misc. i. 175. 

 Cyclobalanopsis, Orsted, Vidensk. Medd. fra nat. For. 



Kjobenh. 1866, 77 {Bidrag til Egeslcegtens Systematik) 



(1867) ; Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. Nat. Math. ser. 5, is. 



371 {Bidrag til Kundskab om Egefamilien i Nutid og 

 Fortid) ; Liebmann Chenes Am. Trop. 19. 



Cyclobalanus, Orsted, Vidensk. Medd. fra nat. For. Kjo- 

 benh. 1866, 80 (Bidrag til Egeslcegtens Systematik) 

 (1867) ; Vidensk. Selsk. Skrift. Nat. Math. ser. 5, ix. 

 375 {Bidrag til Kundskab om Egefamilien i Nutid og 

 Fortid) ; Liebmann Chenes Am. Trop. 20. 



Pasania, Orsted, Vidensk. Medd. fra Tiat. For. Kjobenh. 

 1866j 81 (Bidrag til Egeslcegtens Systematik) (1867) ; 

 Vidensk, Selsk. Skrift. Nat. Math, ser, 5, ix. 373 (Bidrag 

 til Kundskab om Egefamilien i Nutid og Fortid) ; Lieb- 

 mann Chenes Am. Trop. 20- — Prantl, Engler & Prantl 

 Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. i. 55. 



Trees or shrubs, with astringent properties, watery juices, stellate pubescence, pale and scaly or 

 dark and furrowed bark, hard and close-grained or brittle and porous wood, terete branchlets, buds ^ 

 covered by numerous imbricated scales, thick perpendicular tap-roots penetrating deep into the ground, 

 stout wide-spreading horizontal roots and few thick rootlets, and in some species long proliferous stolons. 

 Leaves simple, alternate, five-ranked, variously folded in the bud, lobed, dentate, spinescent or entire, 

 often polymorphous on the same branch, membranaceous or coriaceous, petiolate, penniveined, the 

 primary veins prominent and extending to the margins or united within them and connected by more 

 or less reticulate veinlets, deciduous in the autumn or persistent imtil spring, or until their third 

 or fourth year ; leaf-scars broader than high, shghtly elevated, semiorbicular, more or less obcordate, 

 marked with the ends of numerous scattered fibro-vascular bundles. Stipules obovate or lanceolate, 

 scarious, caducous or those of the upper leaves sometimes persistent during the winter. Flowers monoe- 

 cious, unisexual, or rarely perfect, anemophilous. Staminate flowers (Lepidobalanus) solitary, subtended 

 by lanceolate acute caducous bracts, or ebracteate, in graceful pendulous clustered aments from separate 

 or leafy buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year or from the axils of the inner scales of the 

 terminal bud or from those of leaves of the year ; or (Pasania) in a three to five-flowered cyme in the axfl 



