117. QlJERCUS VlRENS LlVE OAK. 43 



HABITAT. From Delaware to Florida and thence into eastern Texas; 

 west of the Alleganies, from southern Indiana, Illinois and Missouri to 

 the Gulf, growing in rich moist bottom-lands and along the borders of 

 streams subject to inundation. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, very hard and strong, durable 

 in contact with the soil, medullary rays few and large, and annual layers 

 marked prominently with large open ducts. It is of a light reddish- 

 brown color with buff-white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.8039 ; Per- 

 centage of Ash, 0.45 ; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.8003; Coeffi- 

 cient of Elasticity, 96373; Modulus of Rupture, 1118; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 48*2 ; Resistance to Indentation, 233 ; Weight of 

 a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 50.10. 



USES. The most valuable white oak of the Southern States it is used 

 extensively in the manufacture of agricultural implements, wheel stocks, 

 furniture, for fencing, cooperage, baskets, fuel, etc. The edible acorns 

 are devoured with avidity by the hogs and sheep. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not recorded of this species although 

 those common to most of the Oaks and mentioned of the White Oak 

 (Part II, p. 28) are doubtless true of this also. 



117. QUERCUS VIRENS, AIT. 

 LIVE OAK. 



Gen., Immergrune Eiclie; Fr., Chene vert; Sp., Rolle siempre verde. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves small, 1^-4 in. long, coriaceous, evergreen, oblong 

 or elliptical, obtuse, or rounded at apex, tapering to a short petiole, with entire and 

 revolute margin (rarely with few rounded or pointed teeth), lustrous green above, 

 paler and hoary beneath, as with the petioles, peduncles and new growths, especially 

 when young. Flowers with 6-8 stamens; stigmas subsessile; abortive ovules at 

 the base of the perfect seed. F/uit a small ovoid-oblong dark-brown abruptly 

 pointed acorn, maturing the first year, about i in. in length, f immersed in the top- 

 shaped cup composed of many thin membranous, pointed, hoary scales and borne 1 

 to 3 together, sessile upon conspicuous peduncles about 1 in. in length; kernel 

 sweetish bitter. 



(The specific name, mrens, the Latin for green, refers to the evergreen foliage.) 



This interesting evergreen oak attains the hight of 60 or 70 ft. (20 m.) 

 with a trunk sometimes 6 or 7 ft. (2 m.) in diameter, with light-gray bark 

 having firm thick ridges, finally breaking off in fragments rather than 

 scales. When growing alone it is a tree of low and very wide-spreading 

 habit of growth, its sturdy limbs leaving the massive trunk at 10-12 ft. 

 or less from the ground, and reaching out horizontally sometimes 40 or 

 50 ft. or more in all directions and shading an immense area. Such a 

 tree festooned as it usually is with long locks of Spanish Moss, which 

 here finds a most convenient resting place, is a beautiful and characteristic 

 scene of the southern States, and one never to be forgotten by the 

 lover of trees. 



