46 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



The Laurel Oak attains the height of 100 ft. (30 m.) in forest 

 growth in favorable localities, and a thickness of trunk of 3 or 4 ft. 

 (1 m.). When isolated from other trees it forms a rather wide 

 rounded top. The bark of trunk is rather thin, of a brownish gray 

 color and quite smooth, as compared with that of other oaks. With 

 age it becomes somewhat fissured into low flat plates and ridges. 



HABITAT. The Atlantic coast region from the Dismal Swamp of 

 eastern Virginia southward to Mosquito Inlet and Cape Romano, 

 Florida, and westerward along the Gulf coast region to Louisiana. 

 It is confined mostly to the banks of streams, swamps and moist 

 bottom-lands, for which reason it is often called the Water Oak. 

 It is not a very common oak generally and its region of greatest 

 abundance is along the south Atlantic coast and in Florida. 



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

 grained and of a reddish brown color with whitish sap-wood. Specific 

 Gravity, 0.7673; Percentage of Ash, 0.82; Relative Approximate 

 Fuel Value, 0.7610; Coefficient of Elasticity, 125916; Modulus of 

 Rupture, 1181 ; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 526 ; Resistance 

 to Indentation, 253; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 47.82. 



USES. Heretofore not extensively used except for fuel, but suit- 

 able for lumber for interior finishing, furniture, etc., and with the 

 growing scarcity of other more popular oaks this will doubtless be 

 more extensively used. 



The tree is popular for street-planting in southern villages where 

 it usually goes by the name of Water Oak. 



ORDER SALICACE-ZE: WILLOW FAMILY. 



Leaves deciduous, simple, alternate and with stipules (sometimes minute and 

 caducous). Flowers dioecious, appearing in early spring before the leaves, in 

 aments, from axillary buds, a single small flower appearing in the axil of each 

 scale of the ament, peiianth wanting ; stamens 2 many, subtended by a disk and 

 with introrse 2-celled anthers longitudinally dehiscent; pistil with short style, 

 2-4 lobed stigma and 1 -celled ovary having 2-4 parietal placentae and numerous 

 anatropous ovules. Fruit a 1-celled 2-4 valved ovoid capsule, bearing numerous 

 minute seeds surrounded by long silky white hairs and containing short radicle, 

 flat cotyledons and no albumen. 



Trees and shrubs with soft light wool, brittle twigs, bitter bark and of wide 

 distribution, chiefly of the northern hemisphere. They are grouped in two 

 genera. 



GENUS SALIX, L. 



Leaves commonly lanceolate but ranging from obovate to linear; petioles short, 

 sometimes glandular at apex and more or less covering the bud; stipules oblique, 

 serrate, large and persistent (especially so on young shoots) or small and decidu- 

 ous; winter buds covered with a single scale of two coats, the inner thin and 

 membranous. Flowers in aments with entire or glandular dentate bracts and 



