cupuLiFERiE. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



123 



QUERCUS MYRTIFOLIA 



Scrub Oak. 



Leaves oval to oblong-obovate, mostly entire, with thickened revolute margins 



Quercus myrtifoliayWilldenow, Spec. iv. pt. i. 424 (1805). — Quercus Phellos, var. arenaria, Chapman, FL 420 

 Poiret, Lam, Diet. SuppL ii. 213. — Pursh, FL Am. Sept. (1860). 



ii. 626. — Nuttall, Gen. ii. 214. — Nouveaii Duhamel^ vii. Quercus aquatica, I *? 

 151. — EUiott, Sk. ii. 597. — Sprengel, >S?/5i. iii. 858.— xvi. pt. ii. 68 {1^^^). — ^Neuz{g, Jahrb. Bot Gart. Ber- 



Dietrich, Syn. v. 307. — Engelraann, Trans. St. Bonis lui, iii. 182. 



Acad. iii. 396. 



myrtifolia 



An intricately branched shrub^ with slender rigid stems generally three or four or^ sometimes^ fif- 

 teen or twenty feet high and from one to three inches in diameter, covered by smooth bark which near 

 the ground is dark and slightly furrowed. The slender branches are coated at first with a thick pale 

 or fulvous tomentum of articulate hairs which usually persists during the summer^ and in their first 

 winter are Hght brown more or less tinged with red or dark gray and pubescent or puberulous^ becom- 

 ing darker and glabrous in their second season. The winter-buds are ovate or ovab gradually narrowed 

 to the acute apex and covered by closely imbricated dark chestnut-brown slightly puberulous scales. 

 The leaves are involute in the bud^ oval or oblong-obovate^ gradually narrowed and wedge-shaped or 

 broad and rounded or cordate at the base^ acute and apiculate or broad and rounded at the apex, and 

 entire^ with much thickened and revolute, sometimes undulate, but occasionally thin flat margins ; or 

 sometimes, on vigorous shoots, the leaves are sinuate-dentate or lobed above the middle ; when they 

 unfold they are thin, dark red, and coated below and on the petioles with a clammy rusty tomentum of 

 articulate hairs and covered above with stellate pubescence, and when fully grown are thick and coria- 

 ceous, lustrous, dark green, glabrous and conspicuously reticulate-venulose on the upper surface, and 

 paler and yellow-green or light orange-brown on the lower surface, which is glabrous or pubescent 

 and is generally furnished with tufts of rusty hairs in the axils of the veins ; often about an inch and 

 a half long and an inch wide, they vary from half an inch to two inches in length and from a quarter 

 of an inch to an inch in width, with conspicuous midribs raised and rounded on the upper side and 

 few mostly obscure primary veins usually forked half way between the midrib and the margins ; they 

 are borne on stout pubescent yellow petioles rarely more than an eighth of an inch long and fall grad- 

 ually during their second season. The stipules are ovate-lanceolate, brown and scarious, and about half 

 an inch in length. The flowers open in April ; the staminate are borne on hoary stellate-pubescent 

 aments from an inch to an inch and a half in lengthy and the pistillate are sessile or subsessile, and soli- 

 tary or in pairs. The calyx of the staminate flower is coated on the outer surface with rusty hairs and 

 is divided into five ovate acute thin and scarious segments shorter than the stamens, which are generally 

 two or three in number with small acute apiculate yellow glabrous anthers. The involucral scales of 

 the pistillate flower are tomentose and tinged with red, and the stigmas are long and recurved. The 

 fruit, which ripens usually at the end of the second season or occasionally during the first autumn,^ is 

 soHtary or in pairs, and is sessile or borne on a stout peduncle rarely more than a quarter of an inch in 

 length ; the nut is subglobose or ovate, acute, from one quarter to one half of an inch in length, dark 



nni; 



finds 



flowering plants which habitually ripen their fruit in one season ; 



and specimens from Florida show on the same branch acorns that 

 have ripened in one and in two years. 



