56 TREES 



The Live Oak 

 Q. Virginiana, Mill. 



The live oak with its small oval leaves, without a cleft 

 in the plain margins, looks like anything but an oak to the 

 Northerner who walks along a street planted with this 

 evergreen in Richmond or New Orleans. It is not 

 especially good for street use, though often chosen. It 

 develops a broad, rounded dome, by the lengthening 

 of the irregular limbs in a horizontal direction. The 

 trunk becomes massive and buttressed to support the 

 burden. 



The "knees" of this oak were in keenest demand for 

 ship-building before steel took the place of wood. In all 

 lines of construction, this lumber ranks with the best white 

 oak. The short trunk is the disadvantage, from the 

 lumberman's viewpoint. Its beauty, when polished, 

 would make it the wood 'par excellence for elegant furni- 

 ture, except that it is difficult to work, and it sphts 

 easily. 



The Spanish moss that drapes the limbs of live oaks in 

 the South gives them a greenish pallor and an unkempt 

 appearance that seems more interesting than beautiful 

 to many observers. It is only when the sight is familiar, 

 I think, that it is pleasing. Northern trees are so clean- 

 limbed and so regular about shedding their leaves when 

 they fade, that these patient hosts, loaded down with the 

 pendent skeins of the tillandsia, seem to be imposed upon. 

 In fact, the "moss" is not a parasite, sapping the life of 

 the tree, but a lodger, that finds its own food supply with- 

 out help. 



