218 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



with short hairs when first appearing, becoming grayish and shiny 

 during their first winter, eventually turning ashen gray or brown. 



The bark is three-quarters or one inch thick, light gray in color, 

 shedding in thick plates, its surface being divided into thin scales. The 

 winter buds are about one-eighth of an inch long and have light colored 

 scales. The staminate flowers grow in long, slender, hairy spikes from 

 four to six inches long; the calyx is light yellow and hairy. The 

 pistillate flowers are stalked and are also covered with hairs. 



The fruit of forked-leaf white oak is often on slender, fuzzy stems, 

 sometimes an inch or more in length, but is often closely attached to the 

 twig that bears it; the acorn is about one inch long, broad at the base, 

 light brown and covered with short, light hairs, and usually almost 

 entirely enclosed in the deep, spherical cup, which is bright reddish- 

 brown on its inside surface, and covered on the outside with scales; 

 thickened at the base, becoming thinner and forming an irregular edge 

 at the margin of the cup. The cup often almost completely envelopes 

 the acorn. The fruit then looks somewhat like a rough, nearly spherical 

 button. 



This oak's leaves are long and slender, and are divided in from five 

 to nine lobes. When the leaves unfold they are brownish green and 

 hairy above and below; at maturity they are thin and firm, darker green 

 and shiny on the upper surface, silvery or light green and hairy below; 

 from seven to eight inches long, one to four inches broad; in autumn 

 turning a beautiful bright scarlet or vivid orange. 



Commercially this wood is a white oak, and it is seldom or never 

 sent to market under its own name. There are no statistics of cut at the 

 mills or of stand in the forests. Lumbermen take the tree when they 

 come to it in the course of their usual operations, but never go out of 

 their way to get it. Though rather large stands occur in certain south- 

 ern regions, and scattering trees are found in large areas, the total 

 quantity in the country is known to be too small to give this tree an 

 important place as a source of lumber. Neither is there expectation 

 that the future has anything in store for this particular member of the 

 tribe of oaks. The wood rates high in physical properties; is strong as 

 white oak, if not stronger, tough, stiff, hard, and heavy. In contact 

 with the ground it is very durable. The heartwood is rich, dark brown, 

 the sapwood lighter. 



It may be said, generally, that since it goes to market as white oak, 

 and its buyers never object, it possesses the essential properties of that 

 wood, and is used in the same way as far as it is used at all. 



ARIZONA WHITE OAK (Quercus arizonica) is the common and most 

 generally distributed white oak of southern New Mexico and Arizona 



