298 



The Oaks 



rowly wedge-shaped; they are thick and firm, deep dark green and shining above, 

 pale gray and finely hairy with prominent midrib beneath, turning scarlet, yellow- 

 brown before falhng. The leaf-stalk is slender, almost round, smooth or hair)-, i 

 to 2.5 cm. long. The flowers appear in April and ISIay, when the leaves are about 

 one half unfolded, the staminate in clustered slender, hairy catkins 5 to 10 cm. 

 long; calyx 3 to 5-lobed, with ovate lobes; stamens 3 to 5, exserted; anthers ob- 

 long, sharp-pointed. The pistillate flowers are on stout, hairy stems, the calyx- 

 lobes red-woolly, ovate; styles rather short, spreading and dark red. The fruit 

 ripens in the autumn of the second season, usually 2 together, short-stalked or 

 nearly sessile; nut ovoid, globose or depressed globose, i to 1.5 cm. long, light 

 brown, striped and shining; shell thin, thickly woolly inside; cup saucer-shaped, 

 15 to 18 mm. across, light reddish brown on inner surface, thick and embracing 

 nearly half of the nut, its reddish bro^^^l ovate scales finely hairy. 



It is also kno\\Ti as Barren oak, Dwarf black oak. Scrub oak, and Shrub oak. 

 On the Kittatinny Mountains of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the 

 thickets formed by this shrub are sometimes so dense and tangled as to be pene- 

 trated only with great difficulty. 



15. BLACK JACK OAK Quercus marilandica Muenchhausen 



Querciis nigra Wangenheim, not Linnaeus. Quercus cuneata Wangenheim 



A tree of sterile soils from Long island. New York, to Pennsylvania, Indiana 

 and eastern Nebraska, southward to Florida and Texas. Its maximum size, 20 



meters, with a trunk diameter of i m., is 

 attained in Arkansas and Texas. 



The lower stout branches are spreading, 

 the upper ascending, the tree being usually 

 compact and round-topped. The bark is up 

 to 4 cm. thick, deeply fissured into angular 

 plates often 7.5 cm. across and covered by ap- 

 pressed brown to nearly black scales. The 

 twigs are stout, woolly at first, becoming scurfy, 

 reddish brown and finally smooth or nearly so, 

 and dark brown or gray. The winter buds are 

 ovoid or oval, 6 mm. long, angular, sharp- 

 pointed, reddish brown and densely brown- 

 hairy. The leaves are broadly or narrowly 

 obovate, 7 to 18 cm. long, the lobes 3 or 5, the 

 terminal one often large and with bristle-tipped 

 teeth near the apex, sinuses usually very shallow and rounded, the base narrowly 

 rounded or heart-shaped ; they are thick, almost leather}-, deep green, smooth and 

 shining, with a broad midrib above, paler or yellowish brown, with brownish scurfy 

 hairs and prominent venation, or finally smooth beneath, turning brown or yel- 



FiG. 250. Black Jack Oak. 



