236 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



4. LITHOCARPUS Bl. 



Pasania Orst. 



Trees, with astringent properties, pubescence of fascicled hairs, deeply furrowed scaly 

 bark, hard close-grained brittle wood, stout branchlets, and winter-buds covered by few 

 erect or spreading foliaceous scales. Leaves convolute in the bud, petiolate, persistent, 

 entire or dentate, with a stout midrib, primary veins running obliquely to the points of 

 the teeth, or on entire leaves forked and united near the margins, and reticulate veinlets; 

 stipules oblong-obovate to linear-lanceolate, those of the upper leaves persistent and 

 surrounding the buds during the winter. Flowers in erect unisexual and in bisexual 

 tomentose aments from the axils of leaves of the year, from the inner scales of the ter- 

 minal bud or from separate buds in the axils of leaves of the previous year; staminate in 

 3-flowered clusters in the axils of ovate rounded bracts, the lateral flowers subtended by 

 similar but smaller bracts, each flower composed of a 5-lobed tomentose calyx, with nearly 

 triangular acute lobes, 10 stamens, with slender elongated filaments and small oblong or 

 emarginate anthers, and an acute abortive hairy ovary; pistillate scattered at the base 

 of the upper aments below the staminate flowers, solitary in the axils of acute bracts, 

 furnished with minute lateral bractlets, and composed of a C-lobed ovoid calyx, with 

 rounded lobes, inclosed in the tomentose involucral scales, 6 stamens, with abortive an- 

 thers, an ovoid-oblong 3-celled ovary, 3 elongated spreading light green styles thickened 

 and stigmatic at apex, and 2 anatropous ovules in each cell. Fruit an oval or ovoid nut 

 maturing at the end of the second season, 1-seeded by abortion, surrounded at base by the 

 accrescent woody cupular involucre of the flower, marked by a large pale circular basal scar, 

 the thick shell tomentose on the inner surface. Seed red-brown, filling the cavity of the 

 nut, bearing at apex the abortive ovules; cotyledons thick and fleshy, yellow and bitter. 



Lithocarpus is intermediate between the Oaks and the Chestnuts, and, with the excep- 

 tion of one California species, is confined to southeastern Asia, where it is distributed with 

 many species from southern Japan and southern China through the Malay Peninsula to 

 the Indian Archipelago. 



Lithocarpus from X0os and Kap-n-dt, in allusion to the character of the fruit. 



1. Lithocarpus densiflora Rehd. Tan Bark Oak. Chestnut Oak. 

 Quercus densiflora Hook. & Arn. 



Pasania densiflora Orst. 



Leaves oblong or oblong-obovate, rounded or acute or rarely cordate at base, acute or 

 occasionally rounded at apex, or rarely lanceolate and acuminate (f. lanceolata Rehdr.) re- 

 pand-dentate, with acute callous teeth, or entire with thickened revolute margins, coated 

 when they unfold with fulvous tomentum and glandular on the margins with dark ca- 

 ducous glands, at maturity pale green, lustrous and glabrous or covered with scattered 

 pubescence on the upper surface, rusty-tomentose on the lower, ultimately becoming 

 glabrous above and glabrate and bluish white below, 3'-5' long, f '-3' wide, with a midrib 

 raised and rounded on the upper side, thin or thick primary veins and fine conspicuous 

 reticulate veinlets; persistent until the end of their third or fourth year; petioles stout, rigid, 

 tomentose, J'-f in length; stipules brown and scarious, hirsute on the outer surface. 

 Flowers in early spring and frequently also irregularly during the autumn; aments stout- 

 stemmed, 3'-4' long; staminate flowers crowded, hoary-tomentose in the bud, their bracts 

 tomentose. Fruit solitary or often in pairs, on a stout tomentose peduncle '-!' in length ; 

 nut full and rounded at base, gradually narrowed and acute or rounded at apex, scurfy- 

 pubescent when fully grown, becoming light yellow-brown, glabrous and lustrous at ma- 

 turity, |'-1' long, !'-!' thick, its cup shallow, tomentose with lustrous red-brown hairs on 

 the inner surface, and covered by long linear rigid spreading or recurved light brown 

 scales coated with fascicled hairs, frequently tipped, especially while young, with dark red 

 glands and often tomentose near the base of the cup. 



