cupuLiFER^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



87 



QUERCUS OBLONGIFOLIA 



White Oak. 



Leaves ovate, oval or obovate, usually cordate, entire or remotely spinulose-dentate, 



pale blue. 



Quercus oblongifolia, Torrey, Sitgreaves' Rep. 173, t. 19 Quercus undulata, var. oblongata, Engelmann, Rotlv- 

 (1853). — A. cle CandoUe, Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 36. —Wat- roch Wheeler's Rep. vi. 250 (1878). 



son, PL Wheeler^ 17. — Engelmann, Trans. St. Louis Quercus undulata, S grisea, Wenzig 

 Acad. iii. 393 (excl. hab. California). — Sargent, Forest i?erZm, iii. 200 (in part) (1885). 



Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 143 (excl. hab. Cali- Quercus undulata, var. grisea, Greei 

 fornia).— Coulter, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. ii. 416 29 (in part), t 15, f. 1 (1889). 



(Ma7i. PL W. Texas). 



West Am. Oaks 



A tree, rarely more than thirty feet in height, with a short trunk eighteen or twenty inches in 

 diameter and many stout spreading and often contorted branches which form a handsome round-topped 

 symmetrical head. The bark of the trunk is from three quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter in 

 thickness, and is ashy gray and checkered with small nearly square or oblong close plate-like scales. 

 The branches are slender, rigid, and marked with pale lenticels ; at first they are coated with thick 

 pale or fulvous tomentum which gradually disappears, and during their first winter they are light 

 red-brown, dark brown, or dark orange-color, becoming ashy gray in their second or third year. The 

 winter-buds are subglobose^ obtuse, from one sixteenth to one eighth of an inch long, and covered with 

 thin light chestnut-colored scales, those of the inner ranks being coated with thick pale tomentum 



o 



ed with red or pink. The leaves 



bud, ovate^ oval or shghtly obovate, usually 



cordate or sometimes rounded at the base, rounded and occasionally emarginate or acute at the apex, 

 which is often furnished with a minute ridged tip, and entire and sometimes undulate, with thickened 

 revolute margins, or occasionally remotely dentate with small caUous teeth ; or on vigorous shoots or 

 young plants they are oblong, elongated, rounded or wedge-shaped at the narrow base, acute at the 

 apex, and coarsely sinuate or undulate-toothed with gland-tipped teeth, or three-toothed at the broad 

 apex and entire below ; when they unfold they are bright red and coated, especially on the lower 

 surface, with hoary tomentum which soon disappears ; when they are half grown they are membrana- 

 ceous, light green, and glabrous, and at maturity are thin and firm in texture, bright blue and lustrous 

 on the upper and paler on the lower surface, from one to two inches long and from one half to three 

 quarters of an inch broad, or on vigorous shoots sometimes from three to four inches long, with 

 prominent pale midribs raised and rounded on the upper side, slender primary veins arcuate and 

 united near the margins, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets ; they are borne on stout nearly terete 

 petioles about a quarter of an inch in length, and, remaining on the branches during the Avinter without 

 change of color, gradually turn yellow in the spring and fall with or just before the appearance of the 

 new growth. The stipules are oblong-ob ovate or linear-lanceolate, brown and scarious, from half an 

 inch to nearly an inch in length, coated with pale pubescence and caducous. The flowers appear during 

 March and April with the first unfolding of the leaves ; the staminate are borne in short aments, their 

 slender stems covered with white tomentum, and the pistillate are usually sessile, or are raised on tomen- 

 tose peduncles. The calyx of the staminate flower is Hght yellow, pilose, and divided into five or six 

 laciniately cut or entire acute segments tinged with red above the middle, and shorter than the stamens 

 with slender filaments and ovate emarginate glabrous yellow anthers. The involucral scales of the 



