100 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupulifer^. 



to five inches in length and from half an inch to two inches and a half in breadth, with narrow yellow 

 midribs, few slender obscure primary veins forked and united at some distance from the margins, and 

 conspicuous or inconspicuous reticidate veinlets ; they are borne on stout petioles, grooved and flattened 

 on the upper side and rarely more than a quarter of an inch long, and, gradually turning yellow or 

 brown at the end of the winter, fall with or soon after the appearance of the new growth in the spring. 

 The stipules are linear-obovate or lanceolate, hairy, brown and scarious, and about half an inch in 

 length. The flowers appear in March and April, and are borne, the staminate in the axils of linear- 

 lanceolate pubescent bracts in hairy aments from two to three inches in length, the pistillate in sj)ikes 

 on slender pubescent peduncles from one to three inches long. The calyx of the staminate flower is 

 light yellow, hairy, and divided into from five to seven ovate rounded segments shorter than the 

 stamens, which are composed of slender filaments about as long as the large oblong emarginate hirsute 

 yellow anthers. The involucral scales and ovate calyx-lobes of the pistillate flower are coated with 

 hoary pubescence, and the stigmas are bright red. The fruit is usually produced in from three to five- 

 fruited spikes, or sometimes in pairs or singly, on stout light brown puberulous peduncles marked with 

 pale lenticels, enlarged toward the apex, and from one to five inches in length ; the nut is oval or 

 slightly obovate, narrowed at the base, rounded or acute at the narrow apex, dark chestnut-brown and 

 very lustrous, and about an inch long and one third of an inch wide, with a sweet seed and light yellow 

 connate cotyledons; the cup, which incloses about a quarter of the nut, is turbinate, light reddish 

 brown and puberulous within, and covered with thin ovate acute scales slightly keeled on the back, 

 coated with dense lustrous hoary tomentum and produced into smaU closely appressed reddish tips. In 

 germinating, the petioles of the cotyledons grow from one to two inches long, the plumule forcing its 

 way up through a sHt near their base ; the radicle and the upper part of the fruit, by absorbing the 

 sweet and starchy matter contained in the cotyledons, enlarges and forms a spindle-shaped tuber often 

 two inches long which furnishes the young plant with an immediate supply of nourishment and, when 

 this function has been performed, becomes merged with the root.^ 



Querciis Virginiana is distributed from the shores of Mobjack Bay in Virginia southward on the 

 islands and in the neighborhood of the coast to those of Bay Biscayne in Florida ; it abounds in all parts 

 of the Florida peninsula, and, ranging from Cape Romano along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to 

 beyond the mouth of the Rio Grande, spreads inland through Texas to the valley of the Red River and 

 to the Apache and Guadaloupe Mountains in the extreme western part of the state, and to the mountains 

 of northeastern Mexico; it inhabits the island of Cuba and the mountains of southern Mexico, Central 

 America, and Lower California.^ On the Atlantic and east Gulf coasts, where it is very abundant and 

 attains its largest size, the Live Oak grows on rich hummocks and ridsres a few feet above the level of 



the ocean with the Water Oaks, the Hickories, the Red Bay, and the Mulberry ; it is abundant in 

 Texas, growing in the coast region near the banks of streams in low rich soil, and farther westward 

 toward the valley of the Rio Grande often forming on low moist soil the principal part of the shrubby 



gr 



owth. 



In sandy barren soil in the immediate vicinity of the coast, or on the shores of salt water 

 estuaries and bays, the Live Oak is often a shrub with numerous stout contorted stems and thick rigid 

 branchlets. Such shrubby forms bear leaves which, except in their smaller size, resemble the leaves of 

 the large trees, or on some individuals the leaves are thin and but sUghtly or not at all revolute and 

 frequently not more than an inch in length,^ and on others, sometimes bearing fruit on stems not 

 more than a foot high, they are obovate-oblong, often spinosely toothed, three or four inches long and 



1 Engelmann, Trans. St. Louis Acad, iv. 190. Quercus Phellos (maritima), Michaux, Hist. Chenes Am. No. 7, 



These tubers are eagerly sought for and eaten by the negro ehil- t. 13, f. 3 (1801). 



dren in the southern states. 



Quercus maritima, Willdenow, Spec. iv. pt. i. 424 (1805). 



2 Quercus Virginiana was collected by Mr. T. S. Brandegee at Nuttall, Gen. ii. 214 ; Sylva, i. 13. 



Miraflores, Lower California^ November 14, 1890. 

 ^ Quercus Virginiana, var. maritima. 



Quercus virens, var. maritima. Chapman, FL 421 (1860). — En- 

 gelmann, 7ran5, St. Louis Acad. iii. 383. 



