FAGACEAE. — QUERCUS 225 



This Oak is common as a shrub on exposed limestone cliffs and in rocky places 

 generally throughout western Hupch and eastern Szech'uan between altitudes of 

 from 800 to 2500 m. and is colloquially known as the " Chi-kang shu." The bushes 

 grow 1-5 m. tall and are very densely and intricately branched. Under favorable 

 conditions it develops into a small tree 10 m. tall with a short, thick trunk, sharjily 

 ascending-spreading branches and slender pendent branchlets, the whole forming 

 a shapely oval crown. 



The young leaves are usually more or less densely clothed on the under side with 

 a loose felt of yellow-brown to yellowish gray hairs which disappears early, but occa- 

 sionally they are practically glabrous even when not fully unfolded. This variation 

 in degree of pubescence on the young leaves and its early disappearance reconciles 

 the diverse statements of Franchet and von Seemen. The basal half of the midrib on 

 the under surface of the leaf is always clothed with a dense gray felt of villose hairs. 

 The leaves are dark green, strongly bullate and normally quite entire, though they 

 are often coarsely dentate and spiny, and persist until the summer of the second 

 season. The fructification is biennial and the fruit is pedunculate in the axils of the 

 lower leaves of its season's growth. Henry's No. 10217, referred by Skan to Q. 

 semicarpifolia var. glabra, differs only in the leaves being slightly less bullate and 

 rather larger than in the Hupeh form, which may be owing to different ecological 

 conditions. The fructification is clearly biennial, so it cannot belong where Skan 

 placed it, since in that species the fructification is annual. Where the specimens 

 belong on which Franchet based the variety cannot be stated without seeing 

 them. 



Pictures of this Oak will be found under Nos. 566 and 571 of the collection of 

 Wilson's photographs and also in his Vegetation of Western China, No. 434. 



Quercus acrodonta Seemen in Bot. Jahrb. XXIII. Beibl. No. 57, 48 

 (1897); XXIX. 290 (1900). 



Quercus phyllirceoides Franchet in Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris, sdr. 2, VII. 85 



{PI. David. I. 275) (non Gray) (1884). 

 Quercus Ilex, var. phyllireoides Franchet in Jour, de Bot. XIII. 152 (pro parte) 



(1899). ■ 

 Quercus Ilex, var. acrodonta Skan in Jour. Linn. Soc. XXVI. 516 (1899). — 



Koidzumi in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXVI. 160 (1912). 



Western Hupeh: Hsing-shan Hsien, ravine, alt. 1300 m., June 8, 

 1907 (No. 3644; tree 5 m. tall, girth 0.3, one only seen); Ichang and 

 neighborhood, A. Henry (Nos. 2954, 2954 '', 3425); without locality, 

 A. Henry (No. 7619). 



This Oak grows on the limestone cUffs in western Hupeh, but is rare. It is a 

 small, densely branched evergreen tree or large bush. The leaves are shining 

 green above and persist for two seasons, and the fructification is biennial, subsessile 

 and subterminal in the axils of the uppermost leaves of its current season's groMh. 

 It is very closely related toQ. phillyraeoides Gray, and further knowledge may prove 

 it to be only a variety of that species. The close-matted, interwoven felt of pale 

 gray hairs on the under side of the leaf and the midrib slightly impressed near the 

 base of the leaf serve to distinguish it, and since it has a name we think it is best, 

 at present, to consider it distinct. 



