TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



petioles with clammy rusty tomentum and densely pubescent above, at maturity thick 

 and coriaceous, lustrous, dark green, glabrous and conspicuously reticulate-venulose 

 above, paler, yellow-green, or light orange-brown, glabrous or pubescent below, with 

 tufts of rusty hairs in the axils of the veins, \'-%,' long and \'-\' wide; falling gradually 

 during their second year; petioles stout, pubescent, yellow, rarely more than \' in length. 

 Flowers: staminate in hoary pubescent aments \'-\\' long; calyx coated on the outer 

 surface with rusty hairs and divided into 5 ovate acute segments shorter than the 2 or 

 3 stamens; pistillate sessile or nearly sessile, solitary or in pairs, their involucral scales 

 tomentose and tinged with red. Fruit solitary or in pairs, sessile or short-stalked; nut 

 subglobose or ovoid, acute, |'-|' long, dark brown, lustrous and often striate, puberulous 

 at apex, the shell lined with a thick coat of rusty tomentum, inclosed for one fourth to 

 one third its length in a saucer-shaped or turbinate cup light brown and puberulous within, 

 and covered by closely imbricated broad-ovate light brown pubescent scales ciliate on the 

 margins and rounded at their broad apex. 



A round-topped tree, rarely 40 high, with a trunk 4'-5' or rarely up to 15' in diameter, 

 short or rarely long spreading branches and slender branchlets coated at first with a 

 thick pale fulvous tomentum of articulate hairs usually persistent during the summer, 

 light brown more or less tinged with red or dark gray, and pubescent or puberulous during 

 their first winter, becoming darker and glabrous in their second season; more often an intri- 

 cately branched shrub, with slender rigid stems 3-4 or rarely 15-20 high and l'-3' 

 in diameter. Winter-buds ovoid or oval, gradually narrowed to the acute apex, with closely 

 imbricated dark chestnut-brown slightly puberulous scales. Bark thin and smooth, be- 

 coming near the ground dark and slightly furrowed. 



Distribution. Dry sandy ridges on the coast and islands of South Carolina to Bay Bis- 

 cayne, Florida, crossing the central peninsula and from the valley of the Caloosahatchee 

 River, westward along the coast of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi; most abundant 

 on the islands off the coast of east Florida, and of Alabama and Mississippi ; often covering 

 large areas with low impenetrable thickets; perhaps of its largest size in Orange County, 

 on Jupiter Island, and on the coast west of the Appalachicola River, Florida. 



25. Quercus chrysolepis Liebm. Live Oak. Maul Oak. 



Leaves oblong-ovate to elliptic, acute or cuspidate at apex, cordate, rounded or cuneate 

 at base, mostly entire on old trees, often dentate or sinuate-dentate on young trees with 



Fig. 249 



1 or 2 or many spinescent teeth, the two forms often appearing together on vigorous shoots, 

 clothed when they unfold with a thick tomentum of fulvous hairs soon deciduous from the 



