FAGACE^E 



267 



board and in the interior of the Florida peninsula; very abundant in western Florida 

 from the shores of Tampa Bay to Appalachicola and Santa Rosa Island. 



31. Quercus macrocarpa, Michx. Burr Oak. Mossy Cup Oak. 



Leaves obovate or oblong, wedge-shaped or occasionally narrow and rounded at 

 the base, divided by wide sinuses sometimes penetrating nearly to the midrib into 

 5-7 lobes, the terminal lobe large, oval or obovate, regularly crenately lobed, or 

 smaller and 3-lobed at the rounded acute apex, when they unfold yellow-green and 

 pilose above and silvery white and coated below with long pale hairs, at maturity 

 thick and firm, dark green, lustrous and glabrous, or occasionally pilose on the upper 

 surface, pale green or silvery white and covered on the lower surface with soft pale 

 or rarely rufous pubescence, 6'-12' long, 3'-G' wide, with stout pale midribs some- 

 times pilose on the upper side and pubescent on the lower, large primary veins run- 

 ning to the points of the lobes, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets, turning dull yellow 

 or yellowish brown in the autumn; their petioles stout, ^'-1' in length. Flowers : 

 staminate in slender aments 4/-6' long, with yellow-green stems coated with loosely 

 matted pale hairs; calyx yellow-green, pubescent, divided into 4-6 laciniately cut 

 acute segments ending in tufts of long pale hairs; pistillate sessile or stalked; their 

 involucral scales broadly ovate, often somewhat tinged with red toward the margins 



and coated, like the peduncles, with thick pale tomentum; stigmas bright red. Fruit 

 usually solitary, sessile or long-stalked, exceedingly variable in size and sh:ipi>; acorn 

 oval or broadly ovate, broad at the base and rounded at the obtuse or depressed apex 

 covered by soft pale pubescence, $' long and J' wide at the north, sometimes 2' long 

 and 1^' wide in the south, its cup thick or thin, light brown and pubescent on the 

 inner surface, hoary-tomentose and covered on the outer surface by large irregularly 

 imbricated ovate pointed scales, at the base of the cup thin and free or sometimes 

 much thickened and tuberculate, and near its rim generally developed into long 

 slender pale awns forming on northern trees a short inconspicuous and at the south 

 a long conspicuous matted fringe-like border inclosing only the base or nearly the 

 entire acorn. 



A tree, sometimes 170 high, with a trunk 6-7 in diameter, clear of limbs for 

 70-80 above the ground, a broad head of great spreading branches, and stout 

 branchlets coated at first with thick soft pale deciduous pubescence, light orange 



