118 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. cupulifer^. 



and pubescent on the inner surface, and covered by thin broadly ovate light chestnut-brown scales 

 rounded at the apex and clothed, especially toward the base of the cup, with soft silvery pubescence. 



Quercus lujpoleuca is distributed from the Limpio Mountains in western Texas over the mountain 

 ranges of New Mexico and Arizona south of the Colorado plateau, and on those of northern Chihuahua 

 and Sonora. Nowhere very abundant, it is scattered through the Pine forests on the slopes of canons 

 and high ridges usually between six and seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, but sometimes 

 in shrubby forms descending a thousand feet lower. 



The wood of Quercus hyi^olmca is heavy, very strong, hard, and close-grained ; it is dark brown, 

 with thick lighter colored sapwood, and contains broad conspicuous medullary rays, the layers of annual 

 growth being marked by narrow bands of small open ducts. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry 

 wood is 0.8009, a cubic foot weighing 49.91 pounds. 



This tree, one of the most distinct and beautiful of the small Oaks of North America, was 

 discovered on the mountains of southern New Mexico by Charles Wright,^ one of the botanists of the 

 United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, in 1851. 



1 See i. 94. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE 



Plate CCCCV. Quercus hypoleuca. 



1. A flowering branch, natural size. 



2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 



3. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



4. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



5. End of a vigorous shoot, natural size. 



6. A leaf, natural size. 



