SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
CASTANOPSIS. 
FLOWERS unisexual, monecious, apetalous, in erect unisexual or androgynous 
aments; calyx 5 to 6-lobed, or parted, the lobes imbricated in estivation ; stamens 
usually 10 to 12; pistillate flower included in an involucre of scale-like bracts; ovary 
inferior, 3-celled; ovules 2 in each cell, ascending. Fruit a nut inclosed in the accres- 
cent spiny or tuberculate involucre. Leaves alternate, penniveined, stipulate, persistent. 
Castanopsis, Spach, Hist. Vég. xi. 185 (1842).—A. de Castanea, Endlicher, Gen. 275 (in part) (1836). — Baillon, 
Candolle, Jour. Bot. i. 182. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. Hist. Pl. vi. 257 (in part). — Prantl, Engler & Prantl 
iii. 409. Pflanzenfam. iii. pt. i. 54 (in part). 
° Callzocarpus, Miquel, Pl. Jungh. i. 13 (1851). 
Trees or rarely shrubs, with watery juice, scaly bark, astringent wood, terete branchlets, buds 
covered by numerous imbricated scales, stout perpendicular tap-roots and thick rootlets. Leaves 
convolute in the bud, alternate, five-rranked, usually coriaceous, entire or dentate, penniveined, the 
secondary veins inconspicuous or rarely prominent, persistent. Stipules obovate or lanceolate, scarious, 
generally caducous. Flowers monecious, unisexual, anemophilous, in three-flowered cymes, or the 
pistillate rarely solitary or in pairs, in the axils of minute bracts, the lateral flowers subtended by small 
although otherwise similar bracts, on slender erect aments from the axils of the leaves of the year, the 
staminate flowers on usually elongated and panicled aments, the pistillate on shorter simple or panicled 
aments or scattered at the base of the staminate inflorescence. Calyx of the staminate flower campanu- 
late, five or six-lobed or parted, the lobes or segments imbricated in the bud. Stamens indefinite, 
usually ten or twelve, inserted on a slightly thickened torus; filaments filiform, elongated, exserted ; 
anthers oblong, attached on the back, introrse, two-celled, the cells parallel, contiguous, opening 
longitudinally. Ovary rudimentary, minute, hirsute. Pistillate flowers surrounded by an involucre of 
imbricated scales. Calyx urceolate, the short limb divided into six obtuse biserrate lobes. Stamens 
inserted on the limb of the calyx, usually as many as and opposite its lobes, abortive. Ovary inferior, 
three-celled after fecundation. Styles generally three, linear, spreading, slightly exserted from the 
involucre ; stigmas terminal, minute. Ovules two in each cell, attached to its interior angle, semiana- 
tropous ; micropyle superior. Fruit maturing at the end of the second season; involucre containing 
from one to four nuts, ovoid or globose, sometimes more or less depressed, rarely obscurely angled, 
dehiscent or indehiscent, armed with stout spines, tuberculate,or marked with interrupted vertical ridges. 
Nuts inclosed in the involucre, more or less angled by mutual pressure when more than one, often pilose, 
crowned with the remnants of the styles, attached at the base by large conspicuous circular depressed 
umbilici; pericarp of two coats, the outer cartilaginous or bony, the inner thinner, sometimes 
tomentose on the inner surface. Seed usually solitary by abortion, filling the cavity of the nut, marked 
