QTJERCUS. 



213 



In this connection, let the student analyze the Chestnut 

 Tree, the Beech, or the Hazel. A sample tablet is annexed. 



Classification. The order CUPULIFEB^: the Mast- 

 worts is thus limited to 



Trees or shrubs with very deciduous stipules. 



Leaves alternate, simple, straight-veined. 



Flowers apetalous, monoecious, the 5 in catkins. 



Ovary adherent, with all but one cell and ovule abortive. 



Fruit a nut, one or more together in a cup or sack. 



Seed one, filled by the embryo with its massive cotyledons. 



Albumen none. 



The Mastworts number 8 genera and 250 species. Among them 

 are the Oaks, Beech * Chestnut, Iron-wood, Hazel, etc., important for 

 their timber and fruit. 



Chestnuts are the fruit of Castdnea vesca.\ The American variety 

 is smaller and sweeter than the Spanish Chestnut of Europe. Beech- 

 nuts, the fruit of our Fagus ferruginea, are very sweet and nutritious. 

 Filberts, the fruit of the Hazel (Curylus), come from Europe. Our own 

 Hazel-nut is nearly as good. The acorns of the White Oak and Chest- 

 nut Oak (Q. Prinos) are eatable. 



Nutgalls are produced on the leaves and twigs of Oaks by the punc- 

 ture of insects depositing their eggs. The nutgalls of commerce used 

 in making ink, etc., come from Asia Minor. They abound in tannic 

 acid, a principle also found in the bark of some species of Oak used in 

 tanning leather. 



The timber especially of the Live Oak (Q. wrens), White Oak, and 

 English Oak (Q. robur), is of great value in shipbuilding and all 



* To the German name of the Beech (buch) we owe onr English word book, the 

 sides of thick books having formerly been made of beech boards. 



No tree of the forest has its tint of trunk more varied by mosses, lichens and hand- 

 some kinds of fungus that always diversify its dark-gray bark. Virgil loved a Beech- 

 tree for the abundant shadow it gave him, and Gray wandered to be soothed among 

 the famous Burnham Beeches, which he says ' ' are always dreaming out their old stories 

 to the winds." 



t In parts of Europe the Chestnut is highly valued as an article of food, and the 

 tree is extensively grown for this product alone. Many centuries ago Martial said : 

 " For Chestnuts roasted by a gentle heat 

 No city can the learned Naples beat." 



The Chestnut is yet roasted daily there as well as in many other Italian cities ; and 

 similar scenes are enacted on our own street-corners. In the south of France it forms 

 the common vegetable diet of the peasantry. 



