FAGACE^E 



261 



Bark -'-f ' thick, with a smooth light brown surface slightly tinged with red and covered 

 by smooth closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light 

 brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; little valued except as fuel. 



Fig. 238 



Distribution. High sandy borders of swamps and streams and the rich bottom-lands 

 of rivers, or northward sometimes in dry woods; southern Delaware, southward to the 

 shores of the Indian River and Tampa Bay, Florida, ranging inland in the south Atlantic 

 states through the Piedmont region, and westward through the Gulf states to the valley 

 of the Colorado River, Texas, and through eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas to south- 

 eastern Missouri and to central Tennessee and Kentucky. The var. tridentifera Sarg. rare 

 and local; southwest Virginia to Alabama (near Selma, Dallas County), central and western 

 Mississippi, eastern Louisiana; valley of Navidad River, Lavaca County, Texas. A form 

 (f . microcarya Sarg. Quercus microcarya Small) occurs in the dry soil on slopes of Little 

 Stone Mountain, Dekalb County, Georgia. 



The Water Oak is commonly planted as a shade-tree in the streets and squares of the 

 cities and towns of the southern states. 



16. Quercus rhombica Sarg. 



Leaves rhombic, rarely oblong-obovate to lanceolate, acute or rounded and apiculate at 

 apex, cuneate at base, the margins entire or slightly undulate, those on vigorous shoots 

 occasionally furnished on each side near the middle with a short lobe, when they unfold 

 deeply tinged with red, covered with short pale caducous pubescence and furnished be- 

 low with usually persistent tufts of axillary hairs, at maturity thin, dark green and lus- 

 trous above, pale below, 3^-4' long, l^'-2' wide, with a stout conspicuous yellow midrib 

 and slender forked primary veins; turning yellow and falling gradually in early winter, 

 rarely at the ends of branches, obovate and rounded, slightly 3-lobed or undulate at the 

 broad apex (var. obovatifolia Sarg.); petioles yellow, \'-%' in length. Flowers not seen. 

 Fruit sessile or short-stalked; nut ovoid, rounded at apex, thickly covered with pale pu- 

 bescence, f '-' long, f thick; inclosed only at the base in a saucer-shaped cup, rounded 

 on the bottom, silky pubescent on the inner surface, and covered with slightly pubescent 

 reddish brown loosely appressed scales rounded at apex, with free tips, those of the upper 

 rank thin and ciliate on the margins. 



A tree often 120-150 high, with a tall trunk 3-4| in diameter, stout, wide-spreading 

 smooth branches forming a broad open head, and slender glabrous branchlets red-brown 

 during their first season and dark gray the following year. Bark pale gray, slightly fur- 

 rowed and covered with closely appressed scales, '-' thick. 



