CUPTJLIFER.E. (OAK FAMILY.) 443 



ORDER 128. CUFULIFEB^E. (OAK FAMILY.) 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate entire or lobed straight-veined stipu- 

 late leaves, and monoecious apetalous flowers. Sterile flowers in pen- 

 dulous slender or capitate araents. Calyx scale-like, or regular and 

 i-6-lobed. Stamens few. Fertile flowers single or clustered, fur- 

 nished with an involucre which encloses the fruit, or forms a cup at 

 its base. Ovary 2 - 7-celled, witli 1-2 pendulous anatropous ovules 

 in each cell. Stigmas as many as the cells. Fruit 1 -celled, 1-seeded. 

 Albumen none. Cotyledons thick and fleshy. Radicle superior. 



Synopsis. 



* Fertile flowers single, or few in a cluster. 



1. QUERCUS. Nut solitary, with the base enclosed in a scaly involucre. 



2. CASTANEA. Nuts 1-3, enclosed in a 4-valved spiny involucre; sterile aments elon- 



gated, erect. 



3. FAGUS. Nuts 2, 3-angled, enclosed in a somewhat spiny 4-valved involucre : sterile 



aments capitate, pendulous. 



4. CORYLUS. Nut solitary, bony, enclosed in a leafy lacerated involucre. 



* * Fertile flowers spiked. 



5. CARPINUS. Nuts 1 -2, in the axil of an open leafy involucre. 



6. OSTRYA. Nut solitary, enclosed in a membranaceous inflated involucre. 



1. QUERCUS, L. OAK. 



Sterile ament slender, bractless, pendulous. Calyx unequally 6 - 8-parted. 

 Stamens 6 - 12, slender : anthers 2-celled. Fertile flowers axillary, solitary, 

 or few in a cluster. Calyx 6-cleft or denticulate, adnate to the 3 - 4-celled 

 ovary. Ovules 2 in each cell. Stigmas obtuse. Nut (aconi) oblong or 

 hemispherical, partly (rarely wholly) enclosed in the cup-shaped scaly in- 

 volucre. Cotyledons very thick, plano-convex. Trees or shrubs, with simple 

 entire or lobed leaves. Stipules caducous. 



1. MELANOBALANDS. (BLACK OAKS). Bark dark and furrowed : wood 

 porous and brittle : leaves, and their lobes or teeth, bristle-pointed : nuts si/ki/- 

 tomentose within : stamens 4 - 6 : styles long and spreading ; abortive ovules 

 near the top of the seed. 



* Fruit biennial. 



+- Leaves deciduous. 



>-< Leaves entire ; those on vigorous shoots often lobed or toothed. 



1. Q. Phellos, L. (WILLOW OAK.) Leaves (2'-3' long) lanceolate or 

 linear-lanceolate, bristle-awned, scurfy, like the branchlets, when young, be- 

 coming smooth on both sides ; fruit small, sessile; cup flattish, enclosing the 

 base of the hemispherical nut. Margins of swamps and streams. A tree, 

 40 -50 high. 



Var. laurifolia. (Q. laurifolia, Afichx.) Leaves larger (3'-4' long), 

 oblong-lanceolate; cup deeper and more pointed at the base. Light uplands, 

 Florida to North Carolina. A tree commonly larger than the preceding. 



