60 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupULiFERiE. 



lucral scales, with dense silvery white tomentiiin. The calyx of the pistillate flower is light yellow-green, 

 coated with pale hairs on the outer surface, and divided into from five to nine acute segments ending in 

 tufts of rusty haiis and shorter than the stamens, which are composed of slender elongated filaments 

 and emarginate yellow glabrous anthers. The stiomas are bright red. The acorns, which are produced 



in the greatest profusion, covering the branches in favorable seasons with abundant crops, are sessile or 

 are borne on short stout orange-brown stalks ; the nut is oval, rounded and obtuse at the apex, which 

 is covered with white pubescence, fight chestnut-brown and lustrous, from one half to three quarters of 

 an inch in length and from one third to nearly one half of an inch in breadth, with a sweet seed ; the 

 cup, which embraces from one half to two thirds of the nut, is thin, deeply cup-shaped, light brown and 

 pubescent on the inner surface, and hoary with pale tomentum on the outer surface, which is covered 

 with loosely imbricated ovate acute scales usually considerably thickened on the back toward the base 

 of the cup and ending in small acute reddish brown tips. 



Quercus iJrhioldes inhabits rocky slopes and hillsides, or, west of the Mississippi River, some- 

 times low undulating prairies, and is distributed from Essex County, Massachusetts, to North Carolina,^ 

 and westward to southeastern Nebraska,^ central Kansas,^ the Indian Territory, and eastern Texas.* 



First described by Plukenet in 1696,^ this pretty shrub was, according to Loudon,^ introduced into 

 Eno^lish gardens in 1823. 



& i3 



N. 



Nebraska 



8 Mason, Eighth Bienn. Rep. Slate Board Agric. Kansas, 272. 

 4 Coulter, Conirih. U. S. Nat. Herb. ii. 415 (Man. PI. W. Tea 



^ Quercus pumilis Castanece folio Virginiensis, The Ch 

 Oak, Aim. Bat. 309. — Diihamel, Traite des Arbres, ii. 203 

 « Arb. Brit. iii. 1875. f . 1738. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 



Plate CCCLXXVIII. Quercus prinoides. 



1. A flowering branch, natural size. 



2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 



3. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



4. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



5. A fruit, natural size. 



6. A leaf, natural size. 



7. A leaf, natural size. 



8. A winter branchlet, natural size. 



9. An axillary winter-bud, enlarged. 



