CHAP. CV. 



fORYLA CE^. QVE llCUS. 



1877 



the name of Q. bicolor, of which the plate of this tree in our last 

 Volume is a portrait. 



§ V. Riibrce. Red American Oaks. 



Sect, Char. Leaves deeply lobed, sinuated, umltifid, and mucronated. Bark 

 dark, and not scaling off. Fructification biennial. Nut ovate, with a per- 

 sistent style. Cup imbricate, large in proportion to the nut. Trees, varying 

 from 80 ft. or 90 ft. to 13 ft. or 20 ft. in height ; remarkable for the bright 

 red, deep scarlet, or dark purple, of their foliage, when it dies off in autumn. 

 Perhaps most of the kinds in this section might be reduced to two or three 

 species ; but, as they come up tolerably true from seed, we have considered 

 it more convenient for the cultivator to treat them as distinct. The har- 

 diest and most rapitl-grovving, and at the same time the most elegant and 

 ornamental, tree of the section is Q. paliistris, which, with its spreading 

 drooping branches, and its straight erect trunk and spiry top, is, indepen- 

 dently of its lively scarlet, orange, and red colours in spring and autumn, in 

 our oi)inion, the most graceful of all oaks, either European or American. 



'i 1+. Q. RU^BRA L. The red, or C/iawpioii, Oak. 



Identification. Lin. Sp. PI., 1413. ; WiUd. Sp. PL, 4. p. 445. ; Ait. Hort. Kew., 5. p. 292. ; Pursli 

 Fl. Amer. Sept., 'J. p. 630. ; Michx. (juer.. No. 20.; Smith in Abb. Ins., 2. p. 105.; N. Du Hani., /. 

 p. 170. ; Smith in Rees's Cycl., No. 60. 



SyiioHume. Q. B'sculi divisura, *:c., Pluk. Phi/t., t. 54. f. 4. 



Engravings. Pluk. Phyt., t. 54. f. 4. ; Michx. Quer., t. 35, 36. ; North Amer. Syl., 2. t. 28. ; our Jigs. 

 1740. to 1744. ; and the plates of this species in our last Volume. 



Spec. Char., ^c. Leaves smooth, oblong, sinuated, on long stalks ; lobes acute 



sharply toothed, bristle-pointed. Calyx of the fruit flat underneath. 



Nut ovate. (IVilld.) A tree 80 ft. or 90 ft. in height. Introduced in 1739. 

 Varieties. Aiton, in the Horlus Kewenm, 2d ed., mentions two varieties : Q. 



riibra latifolia, the champion oak, which is the Q. rubra of Linnaeus; and Q. 



rubra montana, the mountain red oak. 



Description, S,-c. The red oak is, in America, a tall widely spreading tree, 

 frequently more than 80 ft. high, and with a trunk 3 ft. or + ft. in diameter. 

 The bark is comparatively smooth, of a tlark colour, very thick; and, though in 

 old trees it cracks, yet it never scales off as in the sections A'lba^and Prinus. 

 The wood is reddish and coarse-grained ; and its pores are often so large as 

 to admit the entrance of a hair. The leaves, when they first come out in spring, 

 are of a fine sulphur colour ; when fully expanded, they are smooth and 

 shining on both sides, large, deeply laciniated, and sometimes slightly rounded 

 at the'^ base, especially on old trees ; and, before they fall, they turn of a 

 deep purplish red. According to the younger Michaux, the leaves on old 



trees often nearly resemble those of (i. falcata. The leaves of Q. falcata 

 are, however, always downy beneath; while those of Q. rubra are smooth. 



6 F 4 



