u 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA, cupuLiFERiE. 



The 



quarter of an inch in lengtli, with Hght red-brown scales coated with soft pale pubescence, 

 are convolute in the bud, obovate or oblong, and gradually contracted into long wedge-shaped or 

 occasionally into narrow and rounded bases ; they are sometimes divided by wide sinuses, which often 

 penetrate nearly or quite to the midribs, into five or seven lobes ; the terminal lobe is large, oval, or 

 obovate in outline and regularly crenately lobed, or smaller and three-lobed at the rounded or acute 

 apex ; the upper lateral lobes are narrow, oblique, and three-lobed or variously crenately lobed at the 

 apex, or oblong and rounded and entire at the apex, and much larger than the basal lobes, which are 

 nearly triangular and entire or crenately lobed below ; or the leaves are broadly obovate and deeply or 

 slightly crenately lobed with equal or unequal rounded or occasionally acute lobes, or are pinnatifidly cut 

 into five or seven pairs of narrow lateral rounded lobes gradually increasing in size from the lowest to the 

 three-lobed apex of the leaf ; when they unfold they are yellow-green and pilose above and silvery white 

 and coated with long pale hairs below ; and at maturity they are thick and firm, dark green, lustrous 

 and glabrous or occasionally pilose on the upper surface, and pale green or silvery white on the lower 

 surface, which is coated with soft pale or rarely rufous pubescence, and before falling in the autumn 

 they turn dull yellow or yellowish brown ; they are from six to twelve inches in length and from three 

 to six inches in width, with stout pale midribs sometimes pilose on the upper side and pubescent on the 

 lower, large primary veins running to the points of the principal lobes, secondary veins running to their 

 divisions or arcuate and united within the slightly thickened and revolute margin, and conspicuous 

 reticulate veinlets ; the thick petioles are flattened and grooved on the upper side, much enlarged at 

 the base, and from one third of an inch to an inch in length ; the stipules are Hnear-obovate, or ovate 

 from broad bases and then sometimes abruptly contracted in the middle, brown and scarious, pubescent, 

 especially on the margins and toward the ends, and often an inch long ; or those of the upper leaves 



d frequently remain on the branches d 



The flowers open when 



the leaves are about a third grown, from March in Texas to the beginning of June in the north. The 

 staminate flowers are borne in slender aments from four to six inches in length, with yellow-green stems 

 coated with loosely matted pale hairs -, the calyx is yellow-green, pubescent, and divided into from four 



laciniately 



j^iX^»^ii..^ V^XiVLiii 



fts of long pale hairs ; the stamens are usually from 



four to six in number, with short filaments and yellow glabrous anthers. The pistiUate flowers are 

 sessile or pedunculate, with broadly ovate involucral scales often somewhat tinged with red toward the 

 margins, and coated, like the peduncles, with thick pale tomentum ; the stigmas are bright red. The 

 acorns, which are usually solitary, are sessile or are borne on stout peduncles, sometimes two or three 

 inches in length, and are exceedingly variable in size and shape ; the nut is oval or broadly ovate, 

 broad at the base and rounded at the acute obtuse or depressed apex, which is covered with soft fine 

 pale pubescence , it varies from three fifths of an inch in length and one third of an inch in width 

 on trees growing in the valley of the St. Lawrence River and in northern Minnesota, to two inches in 

 length and an inch and a half in breadth on trees in eastern and central Texas; the cup is cup- 

 shaped, and sometimes on northern trees thin and shallow, but on southern trees deep, thick, and woody ; 

 it sometimes embraces one third of the nut and sometimes all but its extreme apex, and is Hght 

 brown and pubescent on the inner surface and coated with thick hoary tomentum on the outer surface ; 

 tliis is covered by large regularly imbricated ovate pointed scales, which at the base of the cup are 

 sometimes thin and free and sometimes much thickened and more or less united and tuberculate, and 

 near its rim are generally developed into long, slender pale awns varying greatly in length and numbers, 

 and forming on northern trees a short inconspicuous and on more southern trees a long conspicuous 

 matted fringe-like border to the cup. 



lunx-uH macrocarpa usually inhabits low, rich bottom-lands or intervales, or sometimes, in the 

 northwest, low dry hills. In British America it ranges from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia westward 

 through the valley of the St. Lawrence River, where, in the neighborhood of Montreal, it is the common 

 White Oak, and u^^ the valley of the Ottawa River to Pembroke, through Ontario, where it is common. 



