CUPULIFEILfc. (OAK FAMILY.) 477 



* * Leaves coriaceous, evergreen, entire or rarely spiny-toothed. LIVE OAKS. 



10. Q. virens, Ait. (LIVE OAK.) Leaves small, oblong or elliptical, 

 hoary beneath as well as the branchlets; peduncle usually conspicuous, 1 -3- 

 fruited; cup top-shaped ; acorn oblong ; cotyledons completely united into one 

 mass. Along the coast from Va. to Fla. and Tex. Becoming a large tree 

 at the south, and formerly extensively used in ship-building. 



2. MELANOBALAXUS. Bark dark, furrowed ; leaves deciduous, their 

 lobes and teeth acute and bristle-pointed (at least in youth) ; sti.imcns mostly 

 4 - 6 ; cup-scales membranaceous ; styles lung and spreading ; abort ire omli-s 

 near the top of the perfect seed ; inner surface of nut tomentose ; fruit ma- 

 turing the second year, sessile or on short thick peduncles ; wood porous and 

 brittle. BLACK OAKS. 



* Leaves pinnatijid or lobed, slender-petioled, not coriaceous, the lobes or teeth 



conspicuously bristle-pointed. 



+- Mature leaves glabrous on both sides or nearly so, oval, oblong or somewhat 

 obovate in outline, from moderately sinuate-pinnatijid to deeply pinnatijid, 

 turning various shades of red or crimson in late autumn: large trees, with 

 reddish coarse-grained wood; species closely related and apparently readily 

 hybridizing. 



11. Q. rilbra, L. (RED OAK.) Cup saucer-shaped or flat, with a narrow 

 raised border (9 -12" in diameter), of rather fine closely appressed scales, 

 sessile or on a very short and abrupt narrow stalk or neck, very much shorter 

 than the oblong-ovoid or ellipsoidal acorn, which is 1' or less in length ; leaves 

 rather thin, turning dark red after frost, moderately (rarely very deeply) 

 pinnatifid, the lobes acuminate from a broad base, with a few coarse teeth ; 

 bark of trunk dark gray, smoothish. Common both in rich and poor soil, 

 westward to E. Minn, and E. Kan. Timber coarse and poor. Var. RUNCI- 

 NATA, A. DC., is a form with regular nearly entire lobes and the flint nearly 

 a half smaller ; found near St. Louis. 



12. Q. COCCinea, Wang. (SCAELET OAK.) Cup top-shaped, or hemi- 

 spherical u-ith a conical base (7-9" broad), coarsely scaly, covering half or 

 more of the broad! >/ or globular-ovoid acorn, the scales somewhat appressed and 

 glabrate, or in western localities yellowish-canescent and squarrose as in var. 

 tinctoria; leaves in the ordinary forms, at least on full-grown trees, bright 

 green, shining above, turning red in autumn, deeply piunatifid, the slender 

 lobes divergent and sparingly cut-toothed; buds small; acorns 6 -9" long; 

 hark of the trunk gray, the interior reddish. Moist or dry soil; common, 

 from S. Maine to Del., Minn., N. Mo., and south in the mountains. 



Var. tinct6ria, Gray. (QUERCITRON, YELLOW-BARKED, or BLACK OAK.) 

 Leaves with broader undivided lobes, commonly paler and somewhat pubes- 

 cent beneath, turning brownish, orange, or dull red in autumn ; cup-scales 

 large and loosely imbricated or squarrose when dry, yellowish gray, pubescent ; 

 bark of trunk darker-colored and rougher on the surface, thicker, and inter- 

 nally orange, much more valuable for the tanner and dyer ; buds longer and 

 more pointed ; cup sometimes less top-shaped. (Q. tinctoria, Bart ruin.) Dry 

 or gravelly uplands, S. Maine to S. Minn., E. Neb. and Tex. Intermediate 

 forms connect this with the type. The bark is largely used in tanning. 



