28 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. CUPULIFERE. 
the apex, during the summer, when they are not more than an eighth of an inch long; they lengthen in 
the autumn by the growth of the inner scales, and during the winter are from three quarters of an inch 
to nearly an inch long and about an eighth of an inch broad, and are gradually narrowed toward the 
base and the slender pointed apex; the scales are boat-shaped, thin, light chestnut-brown, and lustrous, 
and are often furnished at the apex, especially those on the upper part of the bud, with tufts of short 
pale hairs; the upper scales, which are clothed with pale hairs on the inner surface and along the 
margins, lengthen with the young branch, and when fully grown are often an inch long; they are thin, 
very lustrous, brown above the middle and suffused with red below, and fall before the scales of the 
outer ranks, marking the base of the branchlet with numerous narrow conspicuous persistent ring-like 
scars. The leaves stand rather remotely on the ends of the branches, and are clustered on the short 
lateral branchlets; they are plicately folded in the bud, oblong-ovate, acuminate with long slender 
points, and coarsely serrate with spreading or incurved triangular teeth, except at the gradually 
narrowed wedge-shaped rounded or cordate base; when the bud expands in very early spring they are 
pale green, and clothed on the lower surface and the margins with long pale lustrous silky hairs, which 
also cover the upper side of the midribs and veins; when fully grown they are at first light bright 
green, but soon grow darker, and at maturity are dull dark blue-green on the upper surface, light 
yellow-green and very lustrous on the lower surface, which is furnished with small tufts of long pale 
hairs in the axils of the veins, from two and a half to five inches in length and from one to three 
inches in breadth, with slender yellow midribs raised, rounded and covered with short pale hairs on 
the upper side, and slender primary veins impressed above, running obliquely to the points of the 
teeth, and connected by obscure reticulate veinlets; they are borne on short nearly terete slightly 
grooved hairy petioles from one quarter to one half of an inch long, and turn bright clear yellow in the 
autumn before falling. The stipules are ovate-lanceolate on the lower leaves and strap-shaped or linear- 
lanceolate on the upper, brown or often red below the middle, membranaceous, very lustrous, from an 
inch to an inch and a half in length, and caducous. The flowers open when the leaves are about one 
third grown. The staminate are borne in globose heads an inch in diameter on slender hairy peduncles 
produced from the axils of the ner bud-scales or of those of the lowest leaves, about two inches long, 
and furnished near the middle with linear-lanceolate hairy caducous bractlets sometimes a quarter of an 
inch in length. The calyx is subcampanulate, coated on the outer surface with pale hairs, gradu- 
ally narrowed into a short pedicel, divided above the middle into short ovate rounded lobes, and 
not more than half the length of the stamens composed of white filaments and pale green anthers 
obtuse at the base. The pistillate flowers are borne in usually two-flowered clusters on short clavate 
peduncles from one half to three quarters of an inch long, coated with thick hoary tomentum, and 
produced from the axils of the upper leaves of the year; they are surrounded by an involucre of 
closely imbricated persistent scales clothed with long white hairs, and subtended by several deciduous 
pink bracts, increasing in size outward, the lowest being rather longer than the flowers, bright red 
and furnished at the apex with a tuft of white hairs, and nearly twice the length of the bract opposite 
to it. The lobes of the calyx, which is coated on the outer surface with pale hairs, are linear-lanceolate 
and acute, and rise about as high as the scales of the involucre. The stigmas are strongly reflexed, light 
green, and stigmatic on the inner face along the central line. The fruiting involucre is ovoid, thick- 
walled, about three quarters of an inch long, and is raised on a stout tomentose club-shaped peduncle 
from one quarter to three quarters of an ich in length; at midsummer, when it is fully grown, it is 
puberulous, dark orange-green, and covered with slender straight or slightly recurved prickles, red 
above the middle; in the autumn, at maturity, it is hght brown, tomentose, and beset with strongly 
recurved pubescent prickles, and, opening with the first severe frosts, it remains on the branch after the 
nuts have fallen and often late into the winter. The nut is ovate, gradually narrowed to the rounded 
base, where it is marked by the small dark umbilical scar, acute at the apex, wing-angled, and 
longitudinally ridged between the wings, flattened on the inner surface, light chestnut-brown and 
