04 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupulieer^. 



dentate or sometimes pinuatifid with oblique rounded or acute entire lobes ; when they unfold they are 

 light bronze green and pilose on the upper surface and on the petioles, coated below with silvery 

 white tomentum, and conspicuously glandular-toothed ; and at maturity they are thick and firm, dark 

 green and lustrous above, pale or often silvery white and downy with short soft pubescence below, 

 five or six inches long and from two to four inches broad, with stout pale midribs rounded on the 

 upper side and from six to eight pairs of conspicuous primary veins connected by reticulate cross 

 veinlets and running obHquely to the points of the teeth or lobes, which are tipped with minute 

 callous glandular points; they are borne on stout petioles grooved and flattened on the upper side 

 and from one half to three quarters of an inch in length, and late in the autumn turn dull yellow- 

 brown or occasionally orange-color and red before falling. The stipules are hnear, acute, brown and 

 scarious, coated with pale hairs, from one third to one half of an inch in length and caducous. The 

 staminate flowers are produced in hairy aments three or four inches long ; the calyx is light yellow- 

 green, covered with pale hairs, and deeply divided into from five to nine lanceolate acute segments rather 

 shorter than the stamens, which are composed of slender filaments and oblong apiculate glabrous yellow 

 anthers. The pistillate flowers are produced in few-flowered spikes on elongated peduncles covered, 

 like the involucral scales, with thick white or tawny tomentum ; the stigmas are bright red. The fruit, 

 which is usually in pairs, is borne on slender light or dark brown peduncles gradually thickened toward 

 the apex, marked with pale lenticels, glabrous, puberulous or pubescent, and from an inch and a half 

 to four inches in length ; the nut is oval with a broad base, rounded or acute and covered with pale 

 pubescence at the apex, Hght chestnut-brown, from three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter 

 in length and from one half to three quarters of an inch in width ; the cup, which incloses about a 

 third of the nut, is cup-shaped, thick and woody, light brown and pubescent on the inside and hoary- 

 tomentose on the outer surface, which is sometimes tuberculate or roughened toward the base by the 

 thickened contorted tips of the ovate acute scales ; higher on the cup these are free, thin, acute, 

 chestnut-brown, and at the margin sometimes form a short fringe-like border, which, however, is 

 frequently wanting ; or sometimes all 



& 



wanting ; or sometimes all the scales of the cup are thin with free acute tips. 



Quercua i^Zc/Za^^o/f^^.s inhabits the borders of streams and swamps, growing in low moist fertile 

 soil. It ranges from southern Maine to northern Vermont and southwestern Quebec, westward through 

 Ontario^ and the southern peninsula of Michigan to southeastern Iowa and western Missouri, and 

 southward to the District of Columbia,^ northern Kentucky and Arkansas,^ and along the Appalachian 

 Mountains to northern Georgia. Widely and generally distributed through aU this region, it usually 

 grows in smaU groves, rarely forming an important part of the forest, and is probably more abundant 

 and of larger size in western New York and northern Ohio than in other parts of the country. 



The wood of Quercus platcmoides is heavy, hard, strong, and tough, although Hable to check in 

 seasoning ; it contains broad conspicuous medullary rays and bands of from one to three rows of large 

 open ducts marking the layers of annual growth, and is light brown, with thin hardly distinguishable 

 sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7662, a cubic foot weighing 47.75 

 pounds. It is used in construction, for the interior finish of houses, and in cabinet-making, in 

 carriage and boat building, and in cooperage, for agricultural implements, railway ties, and fencing, 

 and for fuel. Commercially it is not distinguished from the wood of Quercus alba and Quercus 



macrocarpa. 



Quercus lilatanoides was first described by the French botanist Lamarck in 1783, from trees 

 growing in the park of the chateau of Malesherbes. 



^ Brunet, Cat. Veg. Lig. Can. 48. — Bell, Geolog. Rep. Can. crocarpa, the range of which eastward of Toronto he now doubts, 



1879-80, 55°. — Macoun, Cat. Can. PI. 441. although Mr. J. G. Jack has found this species on the St. Law- 



The Blue Oak mentioned by Professor Macoun, which at one rence River south of Montreal, 

 time furnished much of the oak timber exported from Ontario ^ l F. Ward, Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 22, 112 {Fl. Washington). 



west of the Trent River, is now believed by him to be Quercus ma- * Harvey, Am. Jour. Forestry, i. 454. 



