52 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupulifer^. 



toward the base, with rounded or acute sometmies nearly triangular oblique teeth, or rarely obscurely 

 sinuately toothed with oblong rounded teeth ; when they unfold they are orange-green or bronze-red 

 and very lustrous on the upper surface, which is glabrous with the exception of the slightly pilose 

 midribs, and on the under surface are green and coated with soft pale pubescence ; at maturity they 

 are thick and firm or subcoriaceous, yellow-green and rather lustrous above, and paler and covered 

 with fine pubescence below, with stout yellow midribs slightly impressed on the upper side and 

 conspicuous primary veins which run to the points of the teeth or fork before reaching the margins and 

 are connected by rather conspicuous reticulate veinlets 5 they are from four and a half to nine mches 

 in length and from an inch and a half to three inches and a half in width, those near the bottom of 

 the tree being often much broader than those on fertile upper branches ; they are borne on stout or 

 slender petioles varying from half an inch to an inch in length, and fall in the autumn after turning 

 a dull orange-color or rusty brown. The stipules are linear-obovate to lanceolate, scarious, hirsute, 

 green below, brown above the middle, from one half to three quarters of an inch long, and caducous. 

 The flowers appear in May and June, when the leaves are about a third grown, and are borne, the 

 staminate in elongated hirsute aments, and the pistillate in short spikes on stout puberulous dark 

 green peduncles marked with pale lenticels. The calyx of the staminate flower is light yellow, pilose 

 and deeply divided usually into from seven to nine narrow acute segments scarious and reddish brown 

 toward the margins and tipped with clusters of pale hau's ; the stamens equal its divisions in number 

 and are composed of slender light yellow glabrous filaments and oblong bright yellow glabrous emar- 

 ginate anthers. The involucral scales of the pistillate flower are coated with pale hairs ; the stigmas 

 are dark red. The acorns are borne on short stout stems, singly or often in pairs ; the nut is oval or 

 ovate, rounded and rather obtuse or pointed at the apex, bright chestnut-brown, very lustrous, from an 

 inch to an inch and a half in length, and from five eighths of an inch to nearly an inch in breadth ; the 

 cup, which incloses about half the nut or sometimes only its base, is cup-shaped or turbinate, thin, light 

 brown and pubescent on the inner surface, and reddish brown and hoary-pubescent on the outer surface, 

 which is roughened or tuberculate, especially toward the base ; the scales are rather small, with a 

 thickened and knob-Hke base, small thin nearly triangular free light brown tips, and are minute near 

 the rim of the cup. 



Quercus Frinus is an Appalachian tree, and grows on hillsides and the high rocky banks of 

 streams in rich and deep or sometimes in shallow and comparatively sterile soil. Inhabiting the banks 

 of the Saco River and Mount Agamenticus on the coast of southern Maine,^ and the slopes of the Blue 

 Hills in eastern Massachusetts, it ranges southward to Delaware and the District of Columbia ^ and 

 along the mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama, and westward to the shores of Lake Champlain 

 and the valley of the Genesee River in New York, and to the northern shores of Lake Erie, where 

 it is found from the Niagara River to Amherstburg,^ and to central Kentucky and Tennessee. Rare 

 and local in New England and Ontario, it is abundant on the banks of the lower Hudson River and on 

 all the Appalachian hiUs from southern New York to Alabama, and is most common and attains its 



& 



the lower slopes of the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, where, on dry hills 



often forms a large part of the forest growth. 



The wood of Quercus Frinus is heavy, hard, strong, rather tough, close-grained, although difficult 

 to season, and durable in contact with the soil ; it is dark brown, with thin lighter colored sapwood, and 



broad conspicuous medullary rays and large open ducts marking the layers of 



i=> 



The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7499, a cubic foot weighing 46.73 pounds. It 



gely used in fencing, for railway ties, and for fuel 



1 Emerson, Trees Mass. 137. 



in Maine has generally been overlooked by subsequent writers on 



Although Quercus Prinus was collected by William Oakes on the American flora. 

 Mount Agamenticus, where it was found by Emerson, who also ^ L_ -p. Ward, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mm. No. 22, 113 {Fl. Wash- 



saw it farther north on the Saco River, the fact of its occurrence ington). 



8 Macoun, Cat. Can. PL 442. 



