Golden-Leaf Chinquapin 



275 



hairy beneath; the stout leaf-stalk is grooved, and from 5 lo 10 mm. long. The 

 leaves turn yellow at the end of their second year, and gradually fall off; the 

 stipules are brown and fall very early. The flowers are monoecious, appearing 

 during the summer, a few continuing to unfold for several months afterward. The 

 staminate are in erect or spreading elongated catkins with a stout scurfy axis, 

 about 7 cm. long, clustered at the ends of the branchlcts and composed of 

 3-fiowered clusters in the axils of ovate sharp-pointed scales; the perianth is bell- 

 shaped, deeply 5-lobcd or 6-lobed; stamens 10 to 12, their filaments thread-hke, 

 elongated; anthers oblong, 2-celled, opening lengthwise; ovar>' rudimentary and 



Fig. 232. Golden-leaf Chinquapin. 



hairy. The pistillate flowers are in clusters of 2 or 3, or solitar}^ at the base of 

 some of the lower catkins, enclosed in an involucre of scales; the globose-oblong 

 perianth is 6-lobed; abortive stamens as many as the perianth lobes and opposite 

 them; ovary inferior, sessile, conic, hair)-; stigmas sUghtly spreading. The fruit, 

 ripening in the autumn of the second season, is globose, 2.5 to 4 cm. in diameter, 

 sessile, sohtary or clustered, covered by long, slender, stiflf, sharp spines, dehiscent 

 into 4 irregular valves, coated with long hairs on the inside and containing i nut 

 or sometimes 2, the nuts ovoid, bluntly 3-anglcd, with a large basal scar, 

 pale hairy near the apex, otherwise brown and shining; the shell is thick with a 

 thin papery inner coat; the seed fills the cavity, and is sweet and edible. 



The wood is soft, close-grained, weak, light reddish brown; its specific gravity 

 is about 0.56. On account of its lack of strength it is seldom used except for fuel. 



