cupuLiFER^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



41 



QUERCUS CHAPMANI. 



Leaves oblong or oblong-oboyate, entire or slightly sinuate-lobed toward the apex. 



Chapmani 



(1895). 



viii. 93 (not Qitercits Rohiir^ var. parvifolia, Lorey & Durey) 



(I860). — Wenzig, Jahrh. Bot. Gart Berlin, iii. 178. 

 Fl. 423 Quercus stellata, Engelmann, Trans. St Louis Acad. iii. 



389 (in part) (1877). 



Usually a rigid shrub^ producing fruit on stems only one or two feet tall^ but occasionally 

 thirty feet in height, with a trunk a foot in diameter covered with dark bark separatin 



t> 



6 ---t^^ ^c^^g 



irregular plate-like scales, and stout branches forming a round-topped head. The branchlets are 

 slender and marked with small scattered pale lenticels ; they are coated at first with dense bright yellow 

 pubescence, which soon begins to disappear, and becoming light or dark brown and puberulous during 

 their first winter, they ultimately turn ashy gray. The winter-buds are ovate, acute or obtuse, and about 

 an eighth of an inch long, and are covered with glabrous or puberulous light chestnut-brown scales. 

 The leaves are convolute in the bud, from oblong to oblong-obovate, gradually narrowed and wedge- 



shaped or rounded or broad and rounded at the base, rounded at the apex, and entire, with slightly 

 undulate margins or obscurely sinuate-lobed toward the apex ; or, on vigorous shoots, they are often 

 coarsely sinuately divided or deeply lobed and pubescent or tomentose below, the lobes frequently 

 terminating in short rigid points ; when they unfold they are coated below with thick bright yellow 

 pubescence and are covered above with pale stellate deciduous hairs, and at maturity they are thick and 

 firm or subcoriaceous, dark green, glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface, and light green or silvery 

 white and glabrous on the lower, except along the slender midribs, which are sometimes pubescent or 

 puberulous ; they are two or three inches long and an inch wide, but occasionally from four to five 

 inches in length and from two to three inches in breadth, or often not more than an inch long and three 

 quarters of an inch wide, with slender veins arcuate and united near the margins or running to the 

 ends of the lobes, and obscure reticulate veinlets ; they are borne on broad petioles grooved on the 

 upper side and rarely exceeding an eighth of an inch in length, and fall gradually dming the winter, or 

 sometimes remain on the branches until the appearance of those of the next season. The flowers open 

 when the leaves are about a third grown, or on some individuals when they have attained nearly their 

 full size. The staminate flowers are produced in short hirsute aments ; the calyx is hirsute and usually 

 divided into five acute laciniately cut segments, and the stamens are emarginate and hirsute. The 

 pistillate flowers are sessile or short-pedunculate, and their involucral scales, like the peduncles, are 

 coated with dense pale tomentum. The acorns are usually sessile, and solitary or in pairs ; the nut is 

 oval, about five eighths of an inch long and three eighths of an inch broad, and is clothed with pale 

 pubescence from the obtuse rounded apex nearly to the middle ; the cup is deeply cup-shaped or 

 turbinate, and incloses nearly half of the nut ; it is light brown and slightly pubescent on the inner 

 surface, and is covered by ovate oblong long-pointed scales thickened on the back, especially toward 

 the base of the cup, and coated with pale tomentum except on their thin reddish brown margins. 



Quercus Chapmani is distributed from South Carolina to Florida, and inhabits sandy barren 

 Pine lands usually in the immediate neighborhood of the coast. Comparatively rare on the Atlantic 

 seaboard and in the interior of the Florida peninsula, it is very abundant in western Florida, where it 

 is found from the shores of Tampa Bay to Appalachicola and Santa Rosa Island. Usually a shrub, it 

 has only been reported as a tree in the streets of Tampa and in the neighborhood of Appalachicola. 



The character and value of the wood are not known. 



