CUPULIFERjE. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 



177 



The wood of Qiiercus imhricaria is lieavy and hard but rather coarse-grained^ and checks badly in 

 drying; it is light brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood, and contains broad 

 conspicuous medullary rays and wide bands of large open ducts marking the layers of annual growth. 

 The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.7529, a cubic foot weighing 46.92 pounds. It is 

 occasionally used in construction and for clapboards and shingles. 



Qicercus imhricaria was first described by Andre Michaux, who found it among the southern Alle- 

 ghany Mountains toward the end of the last century, although, according to Aiton,^ it had been intro- 

 duced into English gardens by John Fraser ^ in the year when Michaux first visited the mountains of 

 Carolina. 



Quercus imhricaria^ with its symmetrical habit, smooth bark, and lustrous dark green entire leaves, 

 is one of the most beautiful of the American Oaks and a most distinct and desirable ornament of the 

 parks and gardens of eastern America, where it is perfectly hardy as far north at least as the shores of 

 Massachusetts Bay. 



1870, and afterwards destroyed, was believed by him to be a hybrid a stout peduncle sometimes half an inch in length; the nut was ob- 



between Quercus imhricaria and Quercus palustris, (See Braun, Sitz. long, full and rounded at the apex, almost as broad as it was long, 



GeselL Nat. Fr. Berlin, 1870, 82.) The leaves were broadly Ian- light brown, and inclosed for about one third of its length in the 



ceolate, mostly acute at the apex, and entire or usually furnished thin cup-shaped or turbinate cup covered by ovate scales rounded 



with coarse triangular-toothed acute bristle-pointed teeth ; they at the apex and clothed, except on the bright red-brown margins, 



were pubescent at first especially on the lower surface but soon be- with hoary pubescence. 



came glabrate, and at maturity were thin, dark green and lustrous 



1 HorL Kew. ed. 2, v. 288.— Loudon, Arh. BriL iii. 1898, f. 



above, paler below, from four to six inches long and from one to 1777, 



two inches wide. The fruit was mostly solitary and was borne on 



2 See i. 8. 



