170 



SILVA OF NOBTE A3IERICA. cupulifer^. 



short, recurved, and dark red. The acorns ripen early in the autumn of the second year and are sessile 

 or subsessile, and generally solitary ; the nut is nearly ovoid or hemispherical, broad and shghtly rounded 

 at the base, full, rounded and puberulous at the apex, dark brown when first ripe, but as it dries some- 

 times becoming striate with brown and dark olive-green stripes, and about half an inch in length and in 

 breadth, with a thin shell lined with a sHght coat of pale tomentum and bright orange-colored bitter 

 cotyledons ; the cup, which embraces nearly a quarter of the nut, is thin, saucer-shaped, and reddish 

 brown and silky-pubescent on the inner surface, with a large bright orange-colored scar, and is covered 

 by thin ovate light red-brown scales rounded at the ends and coated with pale pubescence except on 

 their darker colored margins. 



Quercus laurifolia inhabits the sandy banks of streams and swamps and rich hummocks in the 

 neighborhood of the coast, and is distributed from the Dismal Swamp in Virginia ^ southward to the 

 shores of Mosquito Inlet and Cape Romano in Florida^ and along the Gulf coast to Louisiana. Nowhere 

 very abundant, it is most common and attains its largest size in eastern Florida. 



The wood of Quercus laurifolia is heavy, and very strong and hard, but coarse-grained and liable 

 to check badly in drying ; it is dark brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood, and 

 contains broad conspicuous medullary rays and bands of small open ducts marking the layers of annual 

 growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7673, a cubic foot weighing 47.82 pounds. 

 It is probably used only as fuel. 



Quercus laurifolia appears to have escaped the notice of early botanists, although among American 

 species it is surpassed in beauty only by the Live Oak, with which it frequently grows on sandy coast 

 hummocks. It is the common Water Oak in the streets and squares of the cities of the south Atlantic 

 and Gulf coasts from Wilmington, North Carolina, to New Orleans, often adorning them with its tall 

 column-like shafts and noble heads of lustrous dark green fohage. 



Quercus laurifolia was collected in the Dismal Swamp in 1877 by Mr. L. F. Ward. 



EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES. 



Plate CCCCXXIX. Quercus laurifolia. 



1. A flowering branch, natural size. 



2. A staminate flower, enlarged. 



3. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 



4. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



5. A leaf of a sterile branch of a young tree, 



natural size. 



6. A winter branchlet, natural size. 



Plate CCCCXXX. Quercus laurifolia 



1. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



2. A fruiting branch, natural size. 



