408 cupulifer^;. (oak family.) 



2. C. pumila, Michx. (Chinquapin.) Leaves oblong, acute, serrate 

 with pointed teeth, whitened-downy underneath ; nut solitary, not flattened. — 

 Sandy woods, from (Long Island?) S. Penn. and Ohio, southward. June. — 

 Shrub or tree 6° -20° high. Involucres small, often spiked; the ovoid pointed 

 nut scarcely half as large as a common chestnut, very sweet. 



3. FAGUS, Toum. Beech. 



Sterile flowers in small heads on drooping peduncles, with deciduous scale- 

 like bracts: calyx bell-shaped, 5-6-cleft: stamens 8-12: anthers 2-celled. 

 Fertile flowers usually in pairs at the apex of a short peduncle, invested by nu- 

 merous awl-shaped bractlets, the inner grown together at their bases to form the 

 involucre : calyx-lobes 4-5, awl-shaped : ovary 3-celIed with 2 ovules in each 

 cell: styles 3, thread-like, stigmatic along the inner side. Nuts sharply 3-sided, 

 usually 2 in each urn-shaped and soft-prickly coriaceous involucre, which splits 

 to below the middle into 4 valves. Cotyledons thick, folded and somewhat 

 united ; but rising and expanding in germination. Trees with smooth ash-gray 

 bark, undivided strongly straight-veined leaves, and a light horizontal spray. 

 Scales of the taper buds formed of scarious stipules. Flowers yellowish, ap- 

 pearing with the leaves : peduncles axillary at the base of the branchlets. (The 

 classical name, from (pdya>, to eat, in allusion to the esculent nuts.) 



1. F. fcrrilgiiiea, Ait. (American Beech 5 .) Leaves oblong-ovate, 

 taper-pointed, distinctly and often coarsely toothed ; petioles and midrib soon 

 nearly naked ; prickles of the fruit recurved or spreading. (F. ferruginea and 

 F. sylvestris, Michx. f.) — Woods; common, especially northward, and along the 

 Alleghanies southward. May. — Leaves longer and less shining than in the 

 European Beech, most of the silky hairs early deciduous ; the lower surface then 

 nearly smooth. 



4. CORYLUS, Tourn. Hazel-nut. Filbert. 



Sterile flowers in drooping cylindrical catkins ; the concave bracts and the 

 2-cleft calyx combined into 3-lobcd scales, to the axis of which the 8 short 

 filaments irregularly cohere : anthers 1 -celled. Fertile flowers several together 

 in lateral and terminal scaly buds. Ovary 2-celled with 1 ovule in each : stig- 

 mas 2, thread-like. Nut bony, ovoid, separately enclosed in a large leafy-coria- 

 ceous involucre, which is composed of 2 or 3 united bracts tubular at the base, 

 and lacerated above. — Shrubs flowering in early spring, before the (roundish 

 unequally serrate) leaves appear. (The classical name, probably from Kopvs, 

 a helmet, from the involucre.) 



1. C. Americana, Walt. (Wild Hazel-nut.) Leaves roundish-heart- 

 shaped, pointed, coarsely serrate ; involucre glandular-downy , with a dilated flattened 

 border, about twice the length of the globular nut. — Thickets ; common. — Shrub 

 4° - 8° high ; the young twigs, &c, downy and glandular-hairy. Nut of fine 

 flavor, but smaller and thicker-shelled than the European Hazel-nut. 



2. C. rosfrata, Ait. (Beaked Hazel-nut.) Leaves ovate or ovate-ob- 

 long, somewhat heart-shaped, pointed, doubly serrate ; involucre much prolonged 

 above the globular-ovoid nut into a narrow tubular beak, densely bristly. — Banks 



