256 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



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

 l'-3' in diameter. Winter-buds ovate or oval, gradually narrowed to the acute 

 apex, with closely imbricated dark chestnut-brown slightly puberulous scales. Bark 

 thiu and smooth, becoming near the ground dark and slightly furrowed. 



Distribution. Dry sandy ridges on the seashore and islands from South Carolina 

 to eastern Florida and from the shores of Bay Biscay ne to eastern Louisiana; most 

 abundant on the islands off the coast of Alabama and Mississippi, often covering 

 large areas with low impenetrable thickets; probably only arborescent near the 

 mouth of the Appalachicola River, Florida. 



22. Quercus agrifolia, Ne'e. Live Oak. Encina. 



Leaves oval, orbicular or oblong, rounded or acute and apiculate at the apex, 

 rounded or cordate at the base, entire or sinuate-dentate, with slender rigid spinose 

 teeth, when they unfold tinged with red and coated with caducous hoary tomentum, 

 at maturity subcoriaceous, convex, dark or pale green, dull and obscurely reticulate 



above, paler, rather lustrous, glabrous, or stellate-pubescent below, with tufts of 

 rusty hairs in the axils of the principal veins, or sometimes covered above with stel- 

 late hairs and coated below with thick hoary pubescence, varying from |'-4' long 

 and from ^'-3' wide, with thickened strongly revolute margins, falling gradually 

 during the winter and early spring; their petioles stout or slender, pubescent or 

 glabrous, %'-V long. Flowers: staminate in slender hairy aments 3' -4' long; calyx 

 bright purple-red in the bud, sometimes furnished with a tuft of long pale hairs at 

 the apex, glabrous or glabrate, divided nearly to the base into 5-7 ovate acute 

 segments reddish above the middle; pistillate sessile or short-stalked, their involucral 

 scales bright red and covered with thick hoary tomentum, or glabrous or puberulous; 

 stigmas bright red. Fruit sessile or nearly so, solitary or in few-fruited clusters; 

 acorn elongated, ovate, abruptly narrowed at the base, gradually narrowed to the 

 acute puberulous apex, light chestnut-brown, f'-l^' long, ^'-f ' broad, the shell lined 

 with a thick coat of pale tomentum, inclosed for one third its length or only at the 

 base in a thin turbinate light brown cup coated on the inner surface with soft pale 

 silky pubescence, and covered by thin papery scales rounded at the narrow apex, 

 and slightly puberulous, especially toward the base of the cup. 



