282 TREES GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 



ROCK CHESTNUT OAK. SWAMP CHESTNUT OAK. 

 CHESTNUT OAK. (Plate CLIV.) 



Qutrcus Prlnus. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Beech. Head, broad, irregular. 40-80-100 feet. Maine southward May, June. 



to Dei., Ky. Fruit: Oct., Nov. 

 Tenn. and Ala. 



Bark: blackish or reddish brown; ridged and separating into close scales. 

 Leaves : simple; alternate; broadly-obovate or oval, with bluntly pointed apex 

 and rounded or slightly pointed base; evenly and crenately toothed, the teeth 

 decreasing in size as they reach the apex; dark green and glabrous above, 

 paler and downy underneath. Acorns: growing in pairs or solitary on a short 

 peduncle. Cup : rounded; thick and covered with minute, thin scales. Nut: 

 brown at maturity; long-ovate or ovoid; edible; slightly sweet. 



That the oaks are silent expressions of strength has been 

 told in the folk-lore and poetry of every nation whose soil they 

 inhabit ; but it was the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table who 

 explained that while " others shirk the work of resisting 

 gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction 

 for its limbs so that their whole weight may tell, and then 

 stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the strain may be 

 mighty enough to be worth resisting. At 90 the oak stops 

 short ; to slant upward another degree would mark infirmity 

 of purpose ; to bend downward, weakness of organization." 



Of the latter tendency one would never suspect the rock 

 chestnut oak, and few of its genus are constructed to display 

 more vigour. It also lives to a venerable age and seems like 

 the patriarch of the generation to the more perishable trees, 

 the flowers and grasses that grow under its shade. The tree is 

 known as an Appalachian one and makes, on the dry hillsides 

 of Carolina and Tennessee, its best growth. Although its 

 wood is not nearly so valuable as that of the white oaks, it 

 has still a field of usefulness in the making of railroad ties 

 and fences. From its bark an unusually large quantity of 

 tannin is extracted. The tree was one of the first of the 

 American oaks to be known in Europe. 



