CUPULIFER^. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



117 



QUERCUS HYPOLEUCA. 



Leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate or elliptical, entire, or spinose-dentate above 

 the middle, coated below with pale or Mtous tomentum. 



Quercus hypoleuca, Engelmann, Trans. St. Louis Acad. Quercus confertifolia, Torrey, Bot. 3Iex. Bound. Su 

 iii. 384 (1876) ; Rothrock Wheeler's Rep. vi. 251. — 207 (not Humboldt, Bonpland & Kunth) (1858). 



Rusby, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, ix. 78. — Sargent, Forest Quercus Mexicana, y confertifolia, Wenzig, Jahrh. B 



*lf 



n 



Trees N. Am. IQt'l 

 Am. Octks^ 9^ t- 6. 



West Gart. Berlm, iii. 209 (iii part) (1883). 



A tree^ usually from twenty to thirty or^ sometimes^ sixty feet in height^ with a tall trunk from ten 

 to fifteen inches in diameter, and slender branches which spread into a narrow round-topped inversely 

 conical head ; or frequently reduced to a shrub. The bark of the trunk is from three quarters of an 

 inch to an inch in thickness, nearly black, and deeply divided into broad ridges broken on the surface 

 into thick plate-like scales. The branchlets are stout, rigid, covered with minute pale lenticels and 

 coated at first with thick hoary tomentum which gradually disapj)ears during their first winter, when they 

 become tomentose or glabrous, light red-brown and are often covered with a glaucous bloom, growing 

 darker during their second year and ultimately nearly black. The winter-buds are ovate, obtuse, about 

 an eighth of an inch long, and covered by thin light chestnut-brown scales with pale scarious margins. 

 The leaves are revolute in the bud, lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate or elliptical, occasionally somewhat 

 falcate, wedge-shaped or rounded or cordate at the narrow base, acute and often apiculate at the apex, 

 and entire or repandly serrate above the middle with a few small minute rigid spinose teeth, or on 

 vigorous shoots they are serrate-lobed with oblique acute lobes ; when they unfold they are light red, 

 covered with close pale deciduous pubescence above and coated below with thick hoary tomentum, and 

 at maturity are thick and firm, dark yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, clothed on the 

 lower with thick silvery white or fulvous tomentum, from two to four inches long and from half an 

 inch to an inch wide, with slender midribs raised and rounded on the upper side, numerous stout 

 primary veins forked near the much thickened and revolute margins, and fine closely reticulate veinlets ; 

 they are borne on stout flattened yellow pubescent or tomentose petioles abruptly enlarged toward the 

 base and varying from an eighth to nearly a quarter of an inch in length, and turn yellow or brown 

 and fall gradually during the spring after the appearance of the new growth. The flowers aj)pear in 

 April, the sterile borne on slender aments coated with loose pale tomentum and four or five inches in 

 length, and the pistillate mostly solitary, and sessile or raised on short tomentose peduncles. The calyx 

 of the staminate flower is thin and scarious, slightly tinged with red, covered on the outer surface with 

 pale hairs, and deeply divided into four or five broadly ovate rounded lobes shorter than the four stamens 

 Avith slender filaments and ovate acute apiculate glabrous anthers which are bright red as the flower 

 opens and gradually turn yellow. The involucral scales and the calyx-lobes of the pistillate flower are 

 thin and scarious and coated with soft pubescence, and the stigmas are recurved and dark red. The 

 fruit, which ripens irregularly during the second summer,^ is sessile or borne on a stout peduncle some- 

 times nearly half an inch long, and is usually solitary ; the nut is ovate, acute or rounded at the narrow 

 apex, which is covered with hoary pubescence, dark green and often striate when ripe, but becoming" 

 light chestnut-brown in drying, and from one half to two thirds of an inch long, with a thick shell lined 

 with white tomentum ^ the cup, which incloses about a third of the nut, is turbinate, rather thick, pale 



The 



first 



maturation is biennial, the fruit beginning to ripen in June and 

 July. 



