148 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CUPULIFER^. 



and acute and entire, or in five or seven-lobed leaves, those of the middle or upper pairs, which are gener- 

 ally the largest, are oblique and lobulate at the apex ; in another form the leaves are oblong-obovate 

 and divided at the broad apex by wide or narrow sinuses broad and rounded at the bottom into three 

 rounded or acute entire or dentate lobes, and are entire and gradually narrowed below into an acute or 

 rounded base ; the leaves of the two forms usually occur on separate trees, although sometimes on the 



same branch ; when they first 



unfold they hang closely appressed against 



the stem, and when fully 



grown they are thin and firm, dark green and lustrous on the upper surface and coated below with soft 

 close pale or rusty pubescence ; those of the first form are six or seven 



inches long and 



fo 



ur or 



five 



inches in length and from two to five 



length, and in the autumn before falHng turn 



inches wide, and those of the second vary from three to eight 

 inches in width ; they are obscurely reticulate-venulose, with stout tomentose midribs, and prunary veins 

 which are stout when running to the points of the lobes or thinner in the entire portions of the leaf, 

 and are then arcuate or forked within the revolute and slightly thickened margins j the leaves are borne 



on slender flattened petioles from one to two inches in 

 brown, dull orange-color, or sometimes bright clear yellow. The stipules are oblong-obovate to hnear- 

 lanceolate, brown and scarious, ciliate on the margins, especially toward the apex, and caducous. The 

 flowers, which appear from March in the south to May at the north, open with the unfolding of the 

 leaves, the staminate borne in the axils of acute hairy caducous bracts in tomentose aments from three to 

 five inches in length, and the pistillate on stout tomentose peduncles. The calyx of the staminate flower 

 is thin and scarious, pubescent on the outer surface, and divided into four or five ovate rounded 

 segments shorter than the stamens, which are four or five in number, with oblong emarginate glabrous 

 yeUow anthers. The involucral scales of the pistillate flower are coated with rusty tomentum and are 

 as long as the acute calyx-lobes or rather shorter ; the stigmas are 



elongated and 



dark red. The fruit 



ripens in the autumn of the second year and is sessile or borne on a short stout peduncle rarely half an 

 inch in length ; the nut is subglobose to ellipsoidal, full and rounded at the apex, truncate and rounded 

 at the base, about half an inch long, and rather light orange-brown ; the cup, which embraces only the 

 base or sometimes a third of the nut, is thin and saucer-shaped, and flat on the bottom or often grad- 

 ually narrowed from a stalk-like base, or it is deeper and turbinate ; it is bright reddish brown and 

 puberulous on the inner surface, and covered by thin ovate-oblong reddish scales, acute or rounded at 

 the apex and covered, except on their margins, with pale pubescence. 



The Spanish Oak is distributed from southern New Jersey southward to central Florida, through 

 the Gulf states to the valley of the Brazos River in Texas, and through Arkansas and southwestern Mis- 

 souri to central Tennessee and Kentucky, and southern Illinois and Indiana. Comparatively rare in the 

 north Atlantic states, where it is found only in the neighborhood of the coast, in the south Atlantic and 

 Gulf states it is one of the commonest inhabitants of the forests which cover the dry hiUs between the 

 coast plain and the Appalachian mountains. Much less abundant in the maritime Pine belt of the south, 

 it there produces, more generally than in other parts of the country, the broad obovate three-lobed 



and sandy barrens, in the southern 



Although usually an inhabitant of dry gravelly uplands 



leaves. 



states from the valley of the Appalachicola River in western Florida to Arkansas, Illinois, and Indiana, 

 the Spanish Oak occasionally inhabits the rich and often inundated bottom-lands of streams, upon 

 which it grows to its largest size with the Sweet Gum, the Pecan, the Swamp White Oaks, the Texas 



Oak, the Pin Oak, and the western Shellbark Hickory 



The wood of the upland 



is hard and 



fc> 



but 



durable 



with the ground 



with 



known 



^ The swamp form of Quercus digitata is peculiar in its pale scaly more loosely imbric 

 bark, large buds, and oblong leaves deeply divided into from three trees. Little is yet 

 to seven acute spreading entire or lobulate lobes. The leaves are wood produced by this swamp tree, but by lumbermen it is consid- 



3 White Oak (Ridgway, Proc. 

 Garden and Forest, viii. 101, 



from six to nine inches long and from four to six inches wide, and ered 



in the autumn turn bright clear yellow before falling. The cups U. S. 



of the fruit are frequently flat on the bottom, although turbinate f. 16). 

 cups also often occur on the same branch ; the scales are rather 



Nat. Mus. V. 80 : xvii 



