258 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



13. Quercus marilandica, Muench. Black Jack. Jack Oak. 



Leaves broadly obovate, rounded or cordate at the narrow base, usually 3 or rarely 

 5-lobed at the broad and often abruptly dilated apex, with short or long, broad or narrow, 

 rounded or acute, entire or dentate lobes, or entire or dentate at apex, sometimes oblong- 

 obovate, undulate-lobed at the broad apex and entire below, or equally 3-lobed with 

 elongated spreading lateral lobes broad and lobulate at apex, when they unfold coated with a 

 clammy tomentum of fascicled hairs and bright pink on the upper surface, at maturity 

 thick and firm or subcoriaceous, dark yellow-green and very lustrous above, yellow, orange 

 color, or brown and scurfy-pubescent below, usually 6'-7' long and broad, with a thick broad 

 orange-colored midrib; turning brown or yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, yellow, gla- 

 brous or pubescent, |'-f' in length. Flowers: staminate in hoary aments 2'-4' long; 

 calyx thin and scarious, tinged with red above the middle, pale-pubescent on the outer 

 surface, divided into 4 or 5 broad ovate rounded lobes; anthers apiculate, dark red; pistillate 



Fig. 236 



on short rusty-tomentose peduncles coated like their involucral scales with thick rusty 

 tomentum; stigmas dark red. Fruit, solitary or in pairs, usually pedunculate; nut oblong, 

 full and rounded at the ends, rather broader below than above the middle, about f long, light 

 yellow-brown and often striate, the shell lined with dense fulvous tomentum, inclosed for 

 one third to nearly two thirds of its length in a thick turbinate light brown cup puberulous 

 on the inner surface, and covered by large reddish brown loosely imbricated scales often 

 ciliate and coated with loose pale or rusty tomentum, the upper scales smaller, erect, in- 

 serted on the top of the cup in several rows, and forming a thick rim round its inner sur- 

 face, or occasionally reflexed and covering the upper half of the inner surface of the cup. 



A tree, 20-30, or occasionally 40-50 high, with a trunk rarely more than 1' in di- 

 ameter, short stout spreading often contorted branches forming a narrow compact round- 

 topped or sometimes an open irregular head, and stout branchlets coated at first with 

 thick pale tomentum, light brown and scurfy-pubescent during their first summer, becom- 

 ing reddish brown and glabrous or puberulous in the winter, and ultimatey brown or ashy 

 gray. Winter-buds ovoid or oval, prominently angled, light red-brown, coated with rusty 

 brown hairs, about long. Bark l'-l|' thick, and deeply divided into nearly square plates 

 l'-3' long and covered by small closely appressed dark brown or nearly black scales. Wood 

 heavy, hard, strong, dark rich brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely used as 

 fuel and in the manufacture of charcoal. 



Distribution. Dry sandy or clay barrens; Long Island and Staten Island, New York, 

 eastern and southern Pennsylvania, and southern New Jersey to the shores of Matanzas 

 Inlet and Tampa Bay, Florida, and westward through the Gulf states to western Texas 



