CUPULIFERiE. 



SILVA OF NOB TIT AMEBIC A. 



19 



The White Oak is one of the most valuable and important timber-trees of North America 



The 



wood is strong, very heavy, hard, tough, close-grained, and durable in contact with the soil, although 

 liable to check unless carefully seasoned. It contains broad conspicuous medullary rays and bands of 



several rows of large open ducts 



layers of annual growth, and is light brown, with thin 



light brown sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7470, a cubic foot weighing 



46.35 pounds 



It 



ployed 



m 



hipbuilding, for 



cooper 



large quantities being 



the form of staves, in the manufacture of carriages, agricultural 



exported annually to Europe in 



implements, and baskets, for the interior finish of houses, and in cabinet-making', and for railway ties 



and fences ; it makes excellent fuel, and is largely used as fire-wood. 



Although first described by Parkinson in 1640,^ the White Oak, according to Aiton, was not 



introduced into English plantations until 1728.^ 



The great size that it attains in good soil, its vigor, longevity, and stately habit, the tender tints of 

 its vernal leaves when the sunlight plays among them, the cheerfulness of its lustrous sunmier green 

 and the splendor of its autumnal colors, make the White Oak one of the noblest and most beautiful 

 trees of the American forest ; and some of the venerable broad-branched individuals growing on the hills 

 of New England and the middle states realize more than any other American tree, that ideal of strength 



d durabiUty of which the Oak has been the symbol in all ages and all civilized 



3 



thick and firm, dark green and lustrous above, and pale and slightly inch in length and a shallow thin pubescent cup covered with regu- 



lar triangular thickened scales. In its leaves this tree approaches 



pubescent below, with the broad rounded base often found on the 



leaves of Quercus PrinuSy which, in their acute sinuses, they gen- Quercus Prinm^ while in the fruit and buds it is more like Quercus 



erully resembled. The fruit was sessile, with a short broad nut alha. 



less than an inch in length, and distinct thickened cup-scales, with 



'^They have in Virginia a goodly tall Oke, which they call 



membranaceous triangular tips (Engelmann, Trans. St, Louis Acad. the white Oke, because the barke is whiter then of others, whose 



iii. 399). leafe because it so neerely resembleth this sweete Oke, I have 



Another tree, found by Dr. Vasey two miles north of the city of joined with it, the Ackorne likewise, is not onely sweeter then others, 



Washington and believed by him to be a, hybrid between Quercus but by boyling it long, it giveth an oyle which they keepe to supple 



alba and Quercus minor {Bull, Torrey Bot. Club, x. 26, t. 30), has their joynts." {Theatr, 1387.) 



oblong rath.i narrow thick lustrous leaves slightly puberulous on Quercus alba Virginiana, Plukenet, Aim, BoL 309. — Miller, DicL 



the lower surface, broad and rounded at the base, and regularly No. 9. — Catesby, NaL Hht. Car. i. 21, t. 21. — Charlevoix, /^£s- 



and incisely lobed. The fruit, however, resembles that of Quercus toire de la Nouvelle France, ed. 12°^°- iv. 339, f. 46. — Romans, NaL 



PrinuSy and, judging by herbarium specimens, this tree might be Hist, Florida, 18. 



considered an extreme form of that species, possibly slightly in- Quercus foliis superne latoribus opposite sinuatiSj sinuhus a 



fluenced by a cross with Quercus alba. 



obtusis, Clayton, Fl, Virgin. 117. 



igulisque 

 Florida^ 



A tree, found by Mr. C. O. Pringle in 1879 growing on a high 26. 



dry rocky hill near Charlotte in northern Vermont, has characters 

 intermediate between those of Quercus alba and Quercus Prinus. 



Quercus alba Banisteri, Duhamel, Traite des Arbres, ii. 203. 



2 Hort. Kew, iii. 358. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii. 1864, f . 1723, 



The leaves are obovate, wedge-shaped at the base, thick and firm, 1726, t. 



dark green and lustrous above, and pale and pubescent below, wdth ^ Di 



six or eight pairs of narrow oblique rounded lobes. The fruit is settSj t 

 short-pedunculate, with an ovate pointed acorn rather less than an 



?/ Massachtb- 



45-47, — Garden and Forest^ iii. 85, f. ; iv. f. 1, 2. 



