302 OAK FAMILY. 



$ 1. Sterile flowers with a distinct 4 - 7-lobed calyx and 8-20 tlender ttamem : fertile 



flowers 1-4 in a cup or bur-likt involucre. 

 * Sterile flowers cluttered in slender calkins : their bracts inconspicuous or deciduous. 



1. QUERCUS. Stamens 3 - 12. Fertile flower only one in the bud-like involucre, 



which becomes :i scaly cup. Stigma 3-lobed. * Nut (acorn) terete, with a firm 

 shell, from which the 'thick cotyledons do not emerge in germination. (Les 

 sons, p. 130, fig. 299; p. 13, fig.* 21, 22.) 



2. CASTANEA. Stamens 8-20. Fertile flowers few (commonly 3) in each in- 



volucre, one or more ripening; stigmas mostly 6 or 7, bristle-shaped. Nuts 

 coriaceous, ovoid, when more than one flattened on one or both sides, en- 

 closed in the hard and thick very prickly bur-like at length 4-valved invo- 

 lucre. Cotyledons somewhat folded together and cohering, remaining under 

 ground in germination. 



* * Sterile flowers in small heads on drooping peduncles. 



8. FAGUS. Calyx of sterile flowers bell-shaped, 5 - 7-cleft, containing 8-16 long 

 stamens. Fertile flowers 2 together on the summit of a scaly-bracted pe- 

 duncle; the innermost scales uniting form the 4-lobed involucre: ovary 

 3-celled when young, crowned by 6 awl-shaped calyx-teeth and a 3-cleft or 

 3 thread-like styles: in fruit a pair of sharply 3-sided nuts in the 4-cleft soft- 

 prickly rigid involucre. Cotyledons thick, somewhat crumpled together, but 

 rising and expanding in germination. (Lessons, p. 11, fig. 13-15.) 



2. Sterile flowers consisting of a feto short stamens partly adhering to the bract, 

 and destitute of any proper calyx; the anthers I -celled: ft i tile flowtis in 

 pairs under each bract of a head, spike, or short catkin, each with one or ttco 

 bracdett, forming afoliaceous or sac-like involucre to the nut Sttrile catkins 

 rattier dense. 



4. COR Y LIT S. Scales of the sterile catkin consisting of a bract to the inside of 

 which 2 bractlets and several stamens adhere. Fertile flowers in a little 

 head, like a scaly bud: stigmas 2, long and red. Nut rather large, bony, 

 wholly or partly enclosed in a leaf-like or tubular and cut-lobe</ or toothed 

 involucre. 



6. OSTRYA. Scales of the sterile catkin simple. Fertile flower? 'n a sort of 

 slender catkin, its bracts deciduous, each flower an ovary tippy! witb 2 long 

 slender stigmas and enclosed in a tubular bractlet, which becoir.es a bladdery 

 greenish-white oblong bag, in the bottom of which is the little nut: these 

 together form a sort of hop-like fruit. 



6. CARPINUS. Sterile catkin as in Ostrya. Fertile flowers in a sort of slender 

 loose catkin; each with a pair of separate 3-lobed bractlets, which become 

 leaf-like, one each side of the small nerved nut. 



1. QUERCUS, OAK. (The classical Latin name.) Flowers in spring; 

 acorns ripe in autumn. All but one of the following species are natives 

 of the country. 



1. Annual-fruited Oaks, the acorns maturing the autumn of the first >/ear, there- 

 fore on the wood of the season, usually in the axil of the leaves, out of 

 which they are often raised on a peduncle: ki mel commonly su-eet-tusted 

 no bristles on the lobes or teith of the leaves. 

 # WHITE OAKS, icith h/ratdi/ or sinuateli/ pinnti/id (nul deciduous /tares. 



- European tree, wore or less planted tstivdid 



Q. R6bur, ETKOPKAN or ENGLISH OAK. Belongs to the same section 

 with our White Oak ; but leaves smaller, not glaucous beneath, sinuate-lobed, 

 but hardly pinnatifid ; acorn oblong, over !' long, one or a few in a cluster 

 which is nearly sessile in the axils in var. SKSSILIFL^KA, raised on a slender 

 peduncle in var. PEDUNCULATA. 



-- 4- Native species : leaves pale or ir/iitis/i laicath. 



Q. alba, WHITE OAK. Rich soil : large tree with whitish bark ; leaves 

 soon smooth, bright green above, whitish beneath, with 3-9 oblong or linear 

 obtuse and mostlv entire oblique lobes ; the shallow rough cup very mucli 

 Aorter than the ovoid-ob'.ong (about 1' long) acorn ; seed edible. 



Q. obtUSiloba, POST OAK, ROUGH or Box WIIITI-: < >ak. Small tree in 

 barren soil, commonest S., with very durable wood ; thiekish leaves grayish 



