56 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CUPULIFER^. 



autumn, before falliuQ-. turn orange-color and scarlet.^ The stipules are linear-obovate 



o 



b 



d 



and caducous. The aments of 



flowers are three or four inches 



long, with slender yellow-green pilose ste 

 fall until they are nearly half grown ; 



appearin 



the unfolding of 



the 



do not 



the calyx is light yellow, hairy, and deeply divided into 



lanceolate ciliate segments ; the anthers are oblong, slightly emarginate, yellow 



glabrous. 



The 



pistillate flowers, which are 



bo 



like their peduncles, with th 



white tomentum ; the stigmas are bright red. The fruit is sessile or raised on a short stout ped 



and is solitary or often in pairs; the nut is broadly 



or 



rowed 



an 



d 



nded at the 



pubescent apex, from half an inch 



ly an inch 



& 



hofht chestnut-brown, and contains a 



sometimes edible seed ; the cup, which embraces about half the nut, is 



shaped, thin, hght 



brown and pubescent on the inner, and hoary 



on the outer surface, which 



ed with 



small obtuse scales, more or less thickened and rounded on the back toward the base of the cuj), the 

 small free red-brown points of the upper ranks forming a minute fringe-like border to its rim.^ 



Q 



acuminata is distributed from Gardner's Island 



Lake Chami3lain, and the banks of 



the Hudson River north of the city of Newburgh^ westward through southern Ontario ^ to southeastern 

 Nebraska^ and eastern Kansas/ and southward in the Atlantic states to the District of Columbia^ and 

 the valley of the upper Potomac River and^ west of the Alleghany Mountains^ to central Alabama and 

 Mississippi^ and through Arkansas ^ and northern Louisiana to the eastern borders of the Indian 

 Territory and to the valley of the Nueces River in Texas^ reaching the western limits of its range in 

 the caiions of the Guadaloupe Mountains in the extreme western part of this state.^ Rare and 

 comparatively local in the Atlantic states, where it is usually found on limestone soil, it is exceedingly 

 abundant in the Mississippi basin, growing on limestone ridges or sometimes on dry flinty hills and 

 on deep rich bottom lands and the rocky banks of streams, and probably attains its largest size on the 

 bottoms of the lower Wabash River and its tributaries in southern Indiana and Illinois.^ 



The wood of Quercns acimihiata is heavy, hard, very strong, close-grained, and durable in contact 

 with the soil, but liable to check badly in drying. It is dark brown, with thin light-colored sapwood, 

 and contains broad conspicuous medullary rays and bands of small open ducts marking the layers of 



annual growth. 



The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.8605, a cubic foot weighing 



53.63 pounds. It is largely used in cooperage and the manufacture of wheels, for fencing, and for 



railway ties. 



Its 



tall straight stem, its pale and often snow-white bark, and its long leaves hanging close to the 

 branches or fluttering on their slender stalks with the faintest breeze, now yeUow-green and then silvery 



^ In the Atlantic states the leaves of this tree are usually are deeply divided in the middle by a pair of broad oblique sinuses, 



oblong-lanceolate and long-acuminate, with sharp often inflexed the upper half of the leaf being sinuately lobed and the lower 



teeth, and are from four to six inches in length and from one to divided into two pairs of narrow acute and usually entire lobes, 



two inches in width. West of the Alleghany Mountains, especially The fruit is short-stalked, with an oval pilose nut half an inch 



when growing on deep rich bottom-lands, it produces, even on fertile long, inclosed to the acute apex in a deep cup-shaped cup, with 



branches, broader obovate mostly short-pointed and larger leaves the hoary basal scales of Quercus macrocarpa^ bui 



with broad, rounded teeth. Such leaves, while they resemble in ginal fringe. 



without 



8 Macoun, Cat Can, PL 442. 



outline those of Quercus Prinus, can be distinguished from them 



by the presence of the glandular tips on the teeth. Ovate acute ^ Besse; 



leaves, rounded at the broad bases with only slightly undulate glan- prinoides). 



dular margins, were found in 1879 near the Chain Bridge, in the 



District of Columbia, by L. F. "Ward, whose specimens are pre- Garden and Forest, iv. 508. 



Nebraska 



(Quercus 



^ Mason, Eighth Bienn, Rep. State Board Agric. Kansas, 272 ; 



served in the National Herbarium. 



- A tree foimd by Mr. E. J. Hill at Robey, Indiana, in 1892, is 

 possibly a hybrid between Quercus acuminata and Quercus macro- 

 carpa. The leaves are oblong or slightly obovate, acute, dark 

 green and lustrous on the upper surface, and silvery white and 

 pubescent on the lower. Some individuals are regularly sinuately 

 lobed with small acute or rounded gland-tipped lobes, and others 



Ward, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 22, 113 (Ft. Wash 



t07l) . 



454 



\uercus acuminata 



Arkansas 



Nat. Mus 



9 



Bidgway, Proc, U. S, Nat. Mus, v. 82 ; xvii. 415. 



