292. HICOBIA VILLOSA PALE-LEAF HICKORY. 43 



The Pale-leaf Hickory is a tree of medium stature, compared with 

 the other hickories. In the forest it does not usually surpass 50 or 

 60 ft. (18 m.) in height or 18 or 20 in. (0.50 m.) in diameter of 

 trunk. In the open it develops a rather narrow oblong top with 

 upright branches and pendulous lower branches. The bark of trunk 

 is of a grayish brown color very rough with prominent reticulated 

 scaly ridges. 



HABITAT. From New Jersey to northern Florida and westward 

 to eastern Texas. In the Mississippi valley it ranges northward into 

 Missouri. It occupies well-drained slopes, sandy plains and rocky 

 ridges, and is particularly abundant in the foot-hill region of the 

 southern Alleghanies. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, very hard, strong, tough, 

 with very inconspicuous medullary rays and large open ducts chiefly 

 in the spring growth, but also scattered somewhat through the summer 

 irrnwth. It is of a yellowish brown color with light brownish white 

 sap-wood. 



USES. The wood of this hickory, like that of most of the hickories 

 is excellent for tool-handles, agricultural implements, etc., where 

 reat strength and toughness are required. It also makes an excellent 



fuel. 



ORDER CUPULIFER^: OAK FAMILY. 



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

 deciduous. Flowers monoecious, apetalous. Sterile flowers in clustered or recemed 

 catkin? (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 covering to the nut; calyx-tube adherent to the ovary, its 

 teeth minute 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: 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, LIXXAEUS. 



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 G-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 

 fjuer. fine, and ctiez. tree.) 



