4:2 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



Arkansas. In its shrubby form it is found farther into the interior of the 

 country and in dryer situations. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, with 

 thin medullary rays and quite uniformly distributed fine open ducts. It 

 is of a mottled brown color, with pinkish white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 

 0.5637; Percentage of Ash, 0.51; Relative Approximate Fuel Value*, 

 0.5608; Coefficient of Elasticity, 88778; Modulus of Rupture, 815; Resist- 

 ance to Longitudinal Pressure, 445; Resistance to Indentation, 144; Weight 

 of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 35.13. 



USES. Wood little used, though suitable for use in turnery for small 

 articles of wooden ware. The fruit . is sometimes gathered, or was abun- 

 dantly in former days, for making candles. Its coating of wax, known as 

 " Myrtle Wax/' is removed by heating in water, and with it a very good 

 candle is made, which burns with some fragrance and a distinctly bluish 

 light. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are asserted of the wax which is procured from 

 the fruit. It has been popularly employed as a remedy for dysentery, the 

 powdered wax in doses of a teaspoonful, with mucilage or syrup, being given, 

 frequently repeated.* 



ORDER CTTPULIFER-ffi : OAK FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple, straight veined ; the stipules, forming the bud-scales, deciduous. 

 Flowers monoecious, apetalous. Sterile flowers in clustered or racemed catkins (or in 

 simple clusters in the Beech) ; calyx regular or scale-like; stamens 5-20. Fertile flowers 

 solitary, clustered or spiked and furnished with an involucre which forms a cup or cover- 

 ing to the nut: calyx-tube adherent to the ovary, its teeth minute and crowning the sum- 

 mit; ovary 2-7-celled with 1-2 pendulous ovules in each cell, but all of the cells and ovules, 

 except one, disappearing before maturity; stigmas 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 anatrapous, often edible, 

 embryo; cotyledons thick and fleshy. 



Order is represented by trees and shrubs of wide geographic distribution. 



GENUS QUERCUS, LINNAEUS. 



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 flowers with ovary nearly 3-celled and 6-ovuled, two of 

 the cells and 5 of the ovules being abortive ; stigma 3-lobed ; involucre developing into a 

 hard, scaly cup around the base of the nut or acorn, which is 1-celled, 1-seeded. 



(Quercus is the ancient Latin name for the Oak, supposed to be from the Celtic quer, 

 fine, and cuez, tree.) 



* V. S. Dispensatory. 16th Ed., p. 395. 



