DECIDUOUS TREES. 309 



ing of dead branches and twigs, and rarely receives the thorough 

 draining and enrichment of the soil without which few oaks develop 

 a high order of foliage beauty. The rate of growth may be inferred 

 from the, growth of one planted by Moses Brown, of Germantown, 

 Pa., a mere whip twenty years ago. It is now forty-five feet high, 

 thirty feet in diameter, and foliaged to the ground ; the form is 

 distinctly conical, but at the same time so irregular in outline as to 

 be quite picturesque. 



THE POST OAK. Q. obtusiloba. A dark-leaved 

 spreading oak found generally near the sea. It is not FIG. 96. 

 found much north of New York. Its leaf resembles 

 the black oak in color and texture, but the lobes are 

 rounded instead of pointed. The branching of the 

 tree is like that of a rugged white oak. There is a 

 superb specimen growing on the beach at Orienta, in 

 Mamaroneck, N. Y., near the residence of Thomas S. Shepherd, 

 Esq., which measures upwards of ninety feet across the spread of 

 its branches. Usual height and breadth about fifty feet. 



THE WATER OAK, Q. aquatica, is a dwarf species, native of New 

 Jersey and Maryland, which, as far as we are aware, has not been 

 thought worthy of cultivation. 



THE HOLLY-LEAVED OR BEAR OAK, Q. illirifolia, is a native 

 dwarf, covering vast tracts of barren mountain slopes or table lands 

 where no other tree can resist the winds. In such situations it 

 grows from three to ten feet high. Probably of no value for home- 

 grounds ; but one of those sorts that ought to be experimented with 

 to try the effect upon it of a lowland soil and climate. 



THE WATER WHITE OAK OF THE SOUTH, Q. lyrata, is a 

 swamp variety, with leaves resembling the burr oak, but smaller 

 and less curiously lobed. It grows principally in the southern 

 States, and there attains a height of eighty feet Michaux states 

 that plants of it grow finely in a dry soil in the north of 

 France. 



