62 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



Fertile flowers solitary, clustered or spiked, and furnished with an involucre which 

 forms a cup or covering to the nut; calyx-tube adherent to the ovary, its teeth min- 

 ute and crowning the summit; ovary 2-7-celled with 1-2 pendulous ovules in each 

 cell, but all of the cells and ovules, except one, disappearing before maturity; stig- 

 mas sessile. Fruit a 1-celled, 1-seeded nut, solitary or several together, and partly 

 or wholly covered by the scaly (in some cases echinate) involucral cup or covering; 

 seed albumenless, with an auatropous, often edible, embryo; cotyledons thick and 

 fleshy. 



Represented by both trees and shrubs. 



GENUS QUERCUS, L. 



Flowers greenish or yellowish. Sterile flowers in loose, slender, naked catkins, 

 which spring singly or several together from axillary buds ; calyx 2-8 parted or 

 cleft; stamens 3-12; anthers 2-celled. Fertile floicers with ovary nearly 3-celled and 

 6-ovuled, 2 of the cells and 5 of the ovules being abortive; stigma 3-lobed; involu- 

 cre developing into a hard, scaly cup around the base of the nut or acorn, which is 

 1-celled, 1-seeded 



(The ancient Latin name for the Oak supposed to be from the Celtic quer, fine, and 

 cuez, tree.) 



15. QUERCUS RUBRA, L. 



RED OAK. 

 Ger., Rofhe Eiche; Fr., Cliene rouge; Sp., Roble rojo. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves on long and slender petioles, abrupt or obtuse at 

 the base, rather thin and smooth both sides when mature, oval or obovate in outline, 

 moderately (rarely deeply) penatifid, with rounded sinuses and 7-9 narrow lobes 

 these and the teeth being conspicuously bristle- pointed, turning dark red in autumn, 

 whence the name ' ' Red Oak. " Flowers appear in May. Sterile with calyx 2-5-parted 

 and 3-5 stamens. Fruit an acorn, requiring two years to reach maturity, and, there- 

 fore, found when mature on old wood below the leaves of the season, oblong-ovoid 

 or turgid-ovoid, large, sometimes an inch in length, with bitter kernel and the abor- 

 tive ovules at the apex of the seed, one-third immersed in the shallow saucer- shaped 

 cup, which is 8-12 lines in diameter, flat and broad with upturned edges, of fine 

 firrnly-appressed and smoothish scales, sessile or on a very short narrow stalk very 

 much shorter than the acorn. 



(The specific name, rubra, is the Latin for red.) 



One of the largest and most beautiful of our Oaks, " giving an idea 

 of nobility and great strength/' and attaining the height of 80 ft. 

 (24 m.) or more, with a trunk sometimes 6 or 7 ft. (2 m.) in diame- 

 ter, and with a wide-spreading top. Its bark is smoother than with most 

 of the oaks, and of a dark-gray color. It possesses an acrid, sour juice, 

 which causes iron to corrode rapidly when in contact with it. 



HABITAT. A northern Oak; found generally throughout Canada 

 and north-eastern United States, growing alike in rich and poor soils. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, hard, strong and coarse- 

 grained, very liable to check in drying and of a light brownish or reddish 

 color with lighter sap-wood . Specific Gravity, 0. 6540 ; Percentage of Ash, 

 0.26; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.6523; Coefficient of Elasticity, 

 112798; Modulus of Rupture, 990; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 

 511; Resistance to Indentation, 177; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 

 40.76. 



