Quercus I 39 



QUERCUS PRINUS, Chestnut Oak 



Quercus Prinus, Linnaeus, Sp. PL 995 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et Prut. Brit. iii. 1872 (1838); 



Sargent, Silva N. America, viii. 51, tt. 375, 376 (1895), and Trees N. America, 272 (1905). 

 Quercus montana, Willdenow, Sp. PI. iv. 440 (1805). 

 Quercus Castanea, Emerson, Trees Mass. 137, t. 5 (1846). 



A tree, occasionally attaining in America 100 ft. in height and 20 ft. in girth, 

 but usually much smaller. Bark on young trees smooth, thin, shining, purplish 

 brown ; on old trunks about an inch thick, dark in colour, and divided into broad 

 rounded scaly ridges. Young branchlets stout, glabrous. Buds ovoid, pointed, 

 about \ in. long, pubescent at the tip, with reddish brown glabrous ciliate scales. 

 Leaves (Plate 336, Fig. 36) deciduous in autumn, turning a dull orange or rusty 

 brown before they fall, averaging about 6 in. long and 3 in. broad, obovate or 

 elliptical ; usually unequal and cuneate, rarely rounded at the base ; apex acute or 

 shortly acuminate; lateral nerves 10 to 13, each ending in a rounded or acute 

 oblique crenate tooth ; upper surface dark green, shining, glabrous ; lower surface 

 pale, covered with a fine pubescence, disappearing in summer ; petiole glabrous, 

 jto 1 in. long. 



Fruit ripening in the first year, on stout stalks about f in. long, single or in 

 pairs ; acorn ovoid-oblong, about an inch long, shining, glabrous, enclosed nearly 

 half its length in a thin hemispherical cup, pubescent within, and roughened or tuber- 

 culated externally, especially near the base, by the small appressed greyish pubescent 

 scales, which are thickened in the centre and free at their tips. 



This species closely resembles in foliage Q. Mirbeckii; but the leaves of the 

 latter species are readily distinguished by the brown fluffy pubescence along the 

 midrib on the lower surface. 



The allied species, Q. Michauxii, Nuttall, formerly considered to be a variety 

 of Q. Prinus, is not in cultivation, but is distinguished in the key, and figured on 

 Plate 336, Fig. 34. 



The chestnut oak ranges from southern Maine, the valley of the Genesee in 

 New York, and the Bay of Quinte in Ontario, southwards to north-eastern Maryland, 

 and along the Alleghany Mountains through the western portions of the Carolinas 

 to northern Georgia and Alabama, becoming, however, in these two states small in 

 size and confined to high altitudes, 2000 to 4500 ft. In the north, in Ontario and 

 New England, it is rare and local and of no commercial importance. It is most 

 abundant in the Alleghany Mountains from southern Pennsylvania, through Virginia, 

 West Virginia, and Kentucky to central and eastern Tennessee. The tree is now 

 found mostly on poor land, or on exposed hill-sides and high rocky ridges, where it 

 often forms a quarter or a third of the hardwood forest in such situations, while on 

 lower slopes and on alluvial land it seldom forms more than 5 per cent. It is mainly 

 associated with Q. velutina, Q. alba, and hickories, and is slow in growth and 

 intolerant of shade ; and on this account tends to be excluded from the better soils 

 and low altitudes, where hemlock, maple, and beech predominate. 



