266 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



the Mississippi basin; the common Oak of central Texas on limestone hills and 

 sandy plains; usually shrubby and rare and local in southern Massachusetts; more 

 abundant southward from the coast of the south Atlantic and the eastern Gulf states 

 to the lower slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. 



30. Quercus Chapmaiii, Sarg. 



Leaves oblong to oblong-obovate, rounded at the narrow apex, narrowed and 

 wedge-shaped or rounded or broad and rounded at the base, entire, with slightly 

 undulate margins, or obscurely sinuate-lobed above the middle, when they unfold 

 coated below with thick bright yellow pubescence and covered above with pale stel- 

 late deciduous hairs, at maturity thick and firm or subcoriaceous, dark green, gla- 

 brous and lustrous above, light green or silvery white and glabrous below except on 



the slender often pubescent midribs, usually 2'-3' long and 1' wide, but varying from 

 l'-3' in length and f'-l' in width, falling gradually during the winter or sometimes 

 persistent until the appearance of the new leaves in the spring; their petioles tomen- 

 tose, rarely ' long. Flowers : staminate in short hirsute aments ; calyx hirsute, divided 

 into 5 acute laciuiately cut segments; anthers hirsute; pistillate sessile or short- 

 stalked, their involucral scales coated with dense pale tomentum. Fruit usually 

 sessile, solitary or in pairs; acorn oval, about ' long and ' broad, pubescent from 

 the obtuse rounded apex nearly to the middle, inclosed for nearly one half its length 

 in the deep cup-shaped light brown cup slightly pubescent on the inner surface, and 

 covered by ovate-oblong pointed scales thickened on the back, especially toward the 

 base of the cup, and coated with pale tomentum except on their thin reddish brown 

 margins. 



Occasionally a tree, 30 high, with a trunk 1 in diameter, stout branches forming 

 a round-topped head, and slender branchlets coated at first with dense bright yellow 

 pubescence, becoming light or dark red-brown and puberulous during their first win- 

 ter and ultimately ashy gray; more often a rigid shrub sometimes only l-2 tall. 

 Winter-buds ovate, acute, obtuse, about ' long, with glabrous or puberulous light 

 chestnut-brown scales. Bark dark, separating into large irregular plate-like scales. 



Distribution. Sandy barren Pine lands usually in the immediate neighborhood 

 of the coast from South Carolina to Florida; comparatively rare on the Atlantic sea- 



