172 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



CUPULIFER^. 



half to three quarters of an inch 



& 



brown 



d 



d cad 



The flowers appear with 



the imfolding of the leaves, the staminate produced in the axils of linear acute hairy caducous bracts in 

 hoary tomentose aments two or three inches in length, and the pistillate borne on short stout tomentose 



ped 



The calyx of the staminate flower before 



d furnished at the apex with a thick tuft of silvery white hairs 



bright red, coated with pubescence 

 it is divided into four or Ave ovat( 



acute segments and becomes yeUow as it unfolds and turns brown before faUing ; the stamens are four 

 or five in number, with ovate acute apiculate glabrous anthers which are dark red in the bud and yellow 

 at maturity. The involucral scales of the pistillate flower are about as long as the acute calyx-lobes, and 

 are coated with pale tomentum ; the stigmas are dark red. The fruit, which ripens late in the autumn 

 of the second year and is occasionally found on branches three or four years old, is usually produced in 

 great profusion and is generally sessile or is sometimes raised on a short stem rarely a quarter of an inch 



ovate, fuU and rounded at both ends, or subglobose, about half an inch in length, 

 1 striate, and coated at the apex with hoary pubescence ; the cup is thin and saucer- 



& 



the 



lieht brown, ofte 



& 



half 



shaped^ embracing only the bottom of the nut^ or it is cup-shaped and incloses its lower 

 bright red-brown and coated with lustrous pale pubescence on the inner surface^ and is covered by thin 

 closely imbricated ovate oblong scales coated^ except on the dark red-brown margins, with hoary tomen- 

 tum.^ 



Q 



hrevifoUa inhabits sandy barrens and upland ridges, and is distributed from North 



Carohna southward to Cape Malabar and the shores of Pease Creek in Florida, and westward along the 

 Gulf coast to the valley of the Brazos River in Texas. In the 



Atlantic and 



Gulf 



usually confined to a maritime belt from forty to fifty miles in width/ although it extends across the 

 Florida peninsula, and in Texas ranges as far inland as the neighborhood of Dallas in about thirty- 

 three degrees north latitude. 



The wood of Querciis hrevifoUa is hard, strong, and close-grained, and is light brown tinged with 

 red, with thick darker colored sapwood ; it contains thin conspicuous medullary rays and bands of small 

 open ducts marking the layers of annual growth. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 

 0.6420, a cubic foot weighing 40.00 pounds. It is probably only used as fuel. 



The Blue Jack ^ was first figured and described by Mark Catesby in his Natural History of Caro- 

 lina^ pubhshed in 1731.^ 



Specimens of two plants found by Mr. George V. Nash in Au- apiculate lobes or teeth, or at the base of the shoot three-lobed at 



gust, 1894, on the road between Umatilla and Lake Ella in Lake 

 County, Florida, are considered hybrids of Quercus hrevifoUa and 



gradually 

 green and 



Quercus Catesbm by Mr. J. K. Small. The first {Bull. Torrey BoL and paler and glabrous below with the exception of occasional tufts 



Club, xxii. 76, t. 234) has pubescent branchlets, and ovate acute and of hairs in the axils of the veins, and are not distinguishable from 



entire or undulate-lobed leaves sometimes three-lobed at the apex, the leaves sometimes produced on vigorous stump-shoots of Quercus 



glabrous on the upper and pale and stellate-pubescent on the lower nigra. 



surface, and, except in the character of the covering of the lower 



2 A specimen without flowers or fruit gathered by Mr. John K. 



surface, not unlike those of some forms of Quercus hrevifoUa. The Small in July, 1893, on the Yellow River in Guinett County in 

 scales of the half-grown fruit, however, are large and nearly gla- northern Georgia, is probably of this species, although far outside 

 brous, and in shape and size resemble those of Quercus Catesbcei its range as otherwise known* 



^ Quercus hrevifoUa is also sometimes called Upland Willow Oak 



rather than those of Quercus hrevifoUa, 



The second of these supposed hybrids (Bull. Torrey Bot. Cluhy and Sand Jack. 



L c. t. 235) has oblong-ovate or oblong-obovate leaves three or four 

 inches in length, variously sinuately lobed or dentate with acute 



Quercus humilior salicis folio hreviore^ i. 22, t. 22. 



