TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Nut inclosed only partly in a shallow cup covered by slender recurved scales united 



only at the base, free above. 4. Lithocarpus. 



Pistillate flowers solitary, in few-flowered unisexual spikes; nut more or less inclosed in 



a cup covered by thin or thickened scales, closely appressed or often free toward its rim. 



5. Quercus. 



1. FAGUS L. Beech. 



Trees, with smooth pale bark, hard close-grained wood, and elongated acute bright 

 chestnut-brown buds, their inner scales accrescent and marking the base of the branchlets 

 with persistent ring-like scars. Leaves convex and plicate along the veins in the bud, thick 

 and firm, deciduous; petioles short, nearly terete, in falling leaving small elevated semioval 

 leaf-scars, with marginal rows of minute fibro- vascular bundle-scars; stipules linear-lance- 

 olate, infolding the leaf in the bud. Flowers vernal after the unfolding of the leaves; stam- 

 inate short-pedicellate, in globose many-flowered heads on long drooping bibracteolate 

 stems at base of shoots of the year or from the axils of their lowest leaves, and com- 

 posed of a subcampanulate 4-8-lobed calyx, the lobes imbricated in aestivation, ovate and 

 rounded, and 8-16 stamens inserted on the base of and longer than the calyx, with slender 

 filaments and oblong green anthers; pistillate in 2-4-flowered stalked clusters in the axils of 

 upper leaves of the year, surrounded by numerous awl-shaped hairy bracts, the outer bright 

 red, longer than the flowers, deciduous, the inner shorter and united below into a 4-lobed 

 involucre becoming at maturity woody, ovoid, thick-walled, and covered by stout recurved 

 prickles, inclosing or partly inclosing the usually 3 nuts, and ultimately separating into 

 4 valves; calyx urn-shaped, villose, divided into 4 or 5 linear-lanceolate acute lobes, its 

 3-angled tube adnate to the 3-celled ovary surmounted by 3 slender recurved pilose styles 

 green and stigmatic toward the apex and longer than the involucre; ovules 2 in each cell. 

 Nut ovoid, unequally 3-angled, acute or winged at the angles, concave and longitudinally 

 ridged on the sides, chestnut-brown and lustrous, tipped with the remnants of the styles, 

 marked at the base by a small triangular scar, with a thin shell covered on the inner surface 

 with rufous tomentum. Seed dark chestnut-brown, suspended with the abortive ovules 

 from the tip of the hairy dissepiment of the ovary pushed by the growth of the seed into 

 one of the angles of the nut; cotyledons sweet, oily, plano-convex. 



Fagus as here limited is confined to the northern hemisphere, with a single American 

 species and seven Old World species; of these one is widely distributed through Europe, 

 another is found in the Caucasus, and the others are confined to eastern temperate Asia. 

 Of exotic species, the European Fagus sylvatica L., an important timber- tree, is frequently 

 planted for ornament in the eastern states in several of its forms, especially those with 

 purple leaves, and with pendulous branches. The wood of Fagus is hard and close-grained. 

 The sweet seeds are a favorite food of swine, and yield a valuable oil. 



Fagus is the classical name of the Beech-tree. 



1. Fagus grandifolia Ehrh. Beech. 

 Fagus americana Sweet. 



Leaves remote at the ends of the branches and clustered on short lateral branchlets, 

 oblong-ovate, acuminate with a long slender point, coarsely serrate with spreading or 

 incurved triangular teeth except at the gradually narrowed generally cuneate base, when 

 they unfold pale green and clothed on the lower surface and margins with long pale lus- 

 trous silky hairs, at maturity dull dark bluish green above, light yellow-green, very 

 lustrous, and glabrous or rarely pilose below (f. pubescens Fern. & Rehd.) with tufts of 

 long pale hairs in the axils of the veins, 2'-5' long, l'-3' wide, with a slender yellow mid- 

 rib covered above with short pale hairs, and slender primary veins running obliquely 

 to the points of the teeth; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn; very rarely deeply 

 laciniate; petioles hairy, '-|' in length; stipules ovate-lanceolate on the lower leaves, strap- 

 shaped to linear-lanceolate on the upper, brown or often red below the middle, membra- 



