408 CUPULIFER^E. (OAK FAMILY.) 



2. C pit Bill la, Michx. (CHINQUAPIN.) Leaves oblong, acute, serrate 

 with pointed teeth, whitened-doivny undenieath ; nut solitary, not flattened. 

 Sandy woods, from (Long Island?) S. Penn. and Ohio, southward. June. 

 Shrub or tree 6 - 20 high. Involucres small, often spiked ; the ovoid pointed 

 nut scarcely half as large as a common chestnut, very sweet. 



3. FAOUS, Toura. BEECH. 



Sterile flowers in small heads on drooping peduncles, with deciduous scale- 

 like bracts: calyx bell-shaped, 5-6-cleft: stamens 8-12: anthers 2-celled. 

 Fertile flowers usually in pairs at the apex of a short peduncle, invested by r TI- 

 merous awl-shaped bractlcts, the inner grown together tit their bases to form the 

 involucre: calyx-lobes 4 - 5, awl-shaped : ovary 3-cellcd with 2 ovules in each 

 cell: styles 3, thread-like, stigmatic along the inner side. Nuts sharply 3-sided, 

 usually 2 in each urn-shaped and soft-prickly coriaceous involucre, which splits 

 to below the middle into 4 valves. Cotyledons thick, folded and somewhat 

 united ; but rising and expanding in germination. Trees with smooth ash-gray 

 bark, undivided strongly straight-veined leaves, and a light hori/.ontal spray. 

 Scales of the taper buds formed of scarious stipules. Flowers yellowish, ap- 

 pcaring with the leaves : peduncles axillary at the base of the branchlcts. (The 

 classical name, from <ayo>, to eat, in allusion to the esculent nuts.) 



1. F. ferriisniica, Ait. (AMERICAN BEECH.) Leaves oblong-ovate, 

 taper-pointed, distinctly and often coarsely toothed ; petioles and midrib soon 

 nearly naked ; prickles of the fruit recurved or spreading. (F. fcrrnginea and 

 F. sylvestris, Miclix.f.) Woods ; common, especially northward, and along the 

 Alleghanies southward. May. Leaves longer and less shining than in the 

 European Beech, most of the silky hairs early deciduous ; the lower surface then 

 nearly smooth. 



4. CORYL.US, Tourn. HAZEL-NUT. FILBEKT. 



Sterile flowers in drooping cylindrical catkins ; the concave bracts and the 

 2-clcft calyx combined into 3-lobed scales, to the axis of which the 8 short 

 filaments irregularly cohere : anthers 1-celled. Fertile flowers several together 

 in lateral and terminal scaly buds. Ovary 2-ccllcd with 1 ovule in each : stig- 

 mas 2, thread-like. Nut bony, ovoid, separately enclosed in a large leafy-coria- 

 ceous involucre, which is composed of 2 or 3 united bracts tubular at the base, 

 and lacerated above. Shrubs flowering in early spring, before the (roundish 

 unequally serrate) leaves appear. (The classical name, probably from Kopvs, 

 a helmet, from the involuf 3.) 



1. C. Americana, Walt. (WiLD HAZEL-NUT.) Leaves roundish-heart- 

 shaped, pointed, coarsely serrate ; involucre glandular-downy, with a dilattd flattened 

 border, about twice the length of the globular nut. Thickets ; common. Shrub 

 4 -8 high; the young twigs, &c., downy and glandular-hairy. Nut of fine 

 flavor, but smaller and thicker-shelled than the European Hazel-nut. 



2. C. rostrata, Ait. (BEAKED HAZEL-NUT.) Leaves ovate or orate-ob- 

 long, somewhat heart shaped, pointed, doubly serrate ; involucre much prolonged 

 above the globular-ovoid nut into a narrow tubular beak, densely bristly. Banks 



