FAGACE.E 



293 



gray tinged with red and broken into thick plates separating on the surface into thin ir- 

 regular appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, tough, very durable in contact with 

 the ground, rich dark brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; confounded commercially 

 with the wood of Quercus alba, and used for the same purpose. 



Distribution. River swamps and small deep depressions on rich bottom-lands, usually 

 wet throughout the year; southern New Jersey (Riddleton, Salem County), and valley of 

 the Patuxent River, Maryland, southward near the coast to western Florida, through the 

 Gulf states to the valley of the Navasota River, Brazos County, Texas, and through 

 Arkansas to the valley of the Meramec River (Allenton, St. Louis County), Missouri, and 

 to central Tennessee and Kentucky, southern Illinois, and southwestern Indiana to Spencer 

 County; comparatively rare in the Atlantic and east Gulf states; most common and of 

 its largest size in the valley of the Red River, Louisiana, and the adjacent parts of Texas 

 and Arkansas. 



Occasionally cultivated in the northeastern states and hardy in eastern Massachusetts. 



X Quercus Comptonae Sarg., a hybrid of Quercus lyrata and Q. virginiana, with char- 

 acters intermediate between those of its parents, discovered many years ago on the banks 

 of Peyton's Creek, Matagorda County, Texas (now gone), occurs with several individuals 

 near dwellings in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi, near Selma, Dallas County, Ala- 

 bama, and in Audubon Park and streets, New Orleans, Louisiana. A tree, sometimes 

 100 high and one of the handsomest of North American Oaks; also produced artificially 

 by Professor H. Ness by crossing Quercus lyrata and Q. virginiana. 



44. Quercus stellata Wang. Post Oak. 



Quercus minor Sarg. 



Leaves oblong-obovate, usually deeply 5-lobed, with broad sinuses oblique in the bottom, 

 and short wide lobes, broad and truncate or obtusely pointed at apex, gradually narrowed 

 and cuneate, or occasionally abruptly narrowed and cuneate or rounded at base, when 



Fig. 269 



they unfold dark red above and densely pubescent, at maturity thick and firm, deep dark 

 green and roughened by scattered fascicled pale hairs above, covered below with gray, 

 light yellow, or rarely silvery white pubescence, usually 4'-5' long and 3'-4' across the 

 lateral lobes, with a broad light-colored midrib pubescent on the upper side and tomentose 

 or pubescent on the lower, stout lateral veins arcuate and united near th margins and 

 connected by conspicuous coarsely reticulated veinlets; turning dull yellow or brown in 

 the autumn; petioles stout, pubescent, \' to nearly I/ in length. Flowers: stamina te in 



