272 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



A tree, often 100 high, with a trunk sometimes free of branches for 40-50, and 

 3-7 in diameter, stout branches ascending at narrow angles and forming a round- 

 topped rather compact head, and stout branchlets at first dark green and covered by 

 pale caducous hairs, becoming bright red-brown or light orange-brown during their 

 first winter and ultimately ashy gray. Winter-buds broadly ovate or oval, acute, \' 

 long, with thin closely and regularly imbricated dark red puberulous scales with pale 

 margins, those of the inner ranks coated on the outer surface with loose pale tomen- 

 tum. Bark '-!' thick, separating into thin closely appressed silvery white or ashy 

 gray scales more or less deeply tinged with red. "Wood heavy, hard, very strong, 

 tough, close-grained, durable, easy to split, light-brown, with thin darker colored 

 sapwood; largely used in all kinds of construction, for agricultural implements and 

 wheels, in cooperage, for fences and fuel, and the manufacture of baskets. 



Distribution. Borders of streams, swamps, and bottom-lands often covered with 

 water; Wilmington, Delaware, southward through the coast and middle districts to 

 northern Florida, through the Gulf states to the valley of the Trinity River, Texas, 

 and through Arkansas and southeastern Missouri to central Tennessee and Kentucky, 

 and to the valley of the lower Wabash River in Illinois and Indiana; conspicuous 

 from the silvery white bark, the massive trunk, and the broad crown of large bright- 

 colored foliage. 



35. Quercus Prinus, L. Chestnut Oak. Rock Chestnut Oak. 



Leaves obovate or oblong to lanceolate, acute or acuminate or rounded at the 

 apex, gradually or abruptly wedge-shaped or rounded or subcordate at the narrowed 

 entire base, irregularly and coarsely crenulate-toothed, with rounded, acute, or some- 

 times nearly triangular oblique teeth, when they unfold orange-green or bronze-red, 

 very lustrous, and glabrous with the exception of the slightly pilose midribs above, 



green and coated below with soft pale pubescence, at maturity thick and firm or 

 subcoriaceous, yellow-green and rather lustrous on the upper surface, paler and cov- 

 ered by fine pubescence on the lower surface, 4^'-9' long, l|'--3' wide, with stout 

 yellow midribs and conspicuous primary veins, often much broader near the bottom 

 of the tree than on fertile upper branches, turning a dull orange color or rusty brown 



