

FAGACE^E 



itary from the axils of the lower leaves on stout pubescent peduncles, bright red at apex 

 and light green below before opening, with ovate acute scales slightly ciliate on the mar- 

 gins, about I' long when the styles protrude from between the scales, beginning to enlarge 

 the following spring. Fruit attaining full size at midsummer and then raised on a stout 

 peduncle, broadly ovoid, rounded and depressed at base, gradually narrowed to the rather 

 obtuse apex, about f ' long and \' broad, with thin lustrous scales slightly thickened and 

 crenately lobed at apex, turning dark reddish brown or nearly black and opening late in the 

 autumn and remaining on the branches until after the flowers open the following year; 

 nut oblong-obovoid, gradually narrowed and apiculate at apex, with a thin membrana- 

 ceous border. 



A tree, occasionally 30 high, with a tall straight trunk 4 '-5' in diameter, small spreading 

 branches forming a narrow round-topped head, slender slightly zigzag branchlets, light 

 green and hairy at first, pale yellow-green, very lustrous, slightly puberulous, marked with 

 occasional small orange-colored lenticels, and glandular with minute dark glandular dots 

 during their first summer, becoming dull light orange or reddish brown in the winter, and 

 ashy gray often slightly tinged with red the following season; more often shrubby, with 

 numerous slender spreading stems 15-20 tall. Winter-buds acute, dark red, coated with 

 pale lustrous scurfy pubescence, about |' long. Bark |' thick, smooth, light brown or 

 brown tinged with gray. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick hardly 

 distinguishable sapwood. 



Distribution. Banks of streams and ponds in southern Delaware and Maryland, and 

 in south central Oklahoma (Johnson and Bryan Counties). 



Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states and hardy as far 

 north as Massachusetts. 



X. FAGACE^. 



Trees, with watery juice, slender terete branchlets marked by numerous usually pale 

 lenticels, alternate stalked penniveined leaves, and narrow mostly deciduous stipules. 

 Flowers monrecious, the staminate in unisexual heads or aments, composed of a 4-8-lobed 

 calyx, and 4 or 8 stamens, with free simple filaments and introrse 2-celled anthers, the cells 

 parallel and contiguous, opening longitudinally; the pistillate solitary or clustered, in ter- 

 minal unisexual or bisexual spikes or heads, subtended by an involucre of imbricated bracts 

 becoming woody and partly or entirely inclosing the fruit, and composed of a 4-8-lobed 

 calyx adnate to the 3-7-celled ovary with as many styles as its cells and 1 or 2 pendulous 

 anatropous or semi-anatropous ovules in each cell. Fruit a nut 1-seeded by abortion, the 

 outer coat cartilaginous, the inner membranaceous or bony. Seed filling the cavity of 

 the nut, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons fleshy, including the min- 

 ute superior radicle; hilum, basal, minute. 



The six genera of this widely distributed family occur in North America with the ex- 

 ception of Nothofagus, separated from Fagus to receive the Beech-trees of the southern 

 hemisphere. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN GENERA. 



Staminate flowers fascicled in globose-stalked heads; the pistillate in 2-4-flowered clusters. 



1. Fagus. 

 Staminate flowers in slender aments. 



Pistillate flowers in 2-5-flowered clusters below the staminate, in bisexual aments. 

 Nut inclosed in a prickly burr. 



Leaves deciduous; ovary 6-celled; nut maturing in one season; branchlets length- 

 ening by an upper axillary bud; bud-scales 4. 2. Castanea. 

 Leaves persistent; ovary 3-celled; nut maturing at the end of the second season; 

 branchlets lengthening by a terminal bud; bud-scales numerous. 3. Castanopsis. 



