CUPU LIFERS. 247 



Etymology. — The many names by which the British oak has been known to 

 botanists constitute not the least of its features. Robur is from the Latin word 

 robur, and indicates strength ; it is also an old name for the oak tree. Pedun- 

 culata refers to the long foot-stalks of the fruit. The variety names, with 

 the exception of heterophylla, are all derived from the Latin, as follows : 

 sess'dijiora, sessile-Howered ; pubesceus, covered with down ; fustiyiata, sloping 

 to a point ; pendula, hanging down ; foliis variegatls, variegated leaves ; pur- 

 purea, purple-colored. HeterophyUa is from the Greek ^repos, different, and 

 (pvWou, a leaf, hence varying leaves. 



History. — The celebrated character of the British oak seems to call for a 

 special notice. Some of the most remarkable specimens of this tree are 

 interesting for their age and size. The Framlingham oak, used in the con- 

 struction of the " Koyal Sovereign," squared four feet nine inches, and yielded 

 four square beams, each forty-four feet in length. An oak felled at Whitney 

 Park, Shropshire, in England, in 1697, was nine feet in diameter without the 

 bark, and yielded from the trunk alone twenty-eight tons of timber. The 

 head of this great tree was one hundred and forty-four feet in diameter. 

 Another English oak, in Holt Forest, Hampshire, measured, seven feet from 

 the ground, thirty-four feet in circumference. Another, at Newbury, meas- 

 ured forty-five feet around. Still another, in the vale of Gloucester, was 

 fifty-four feet in circumference; and one in Dorsetshire gave a girth of 

 sixtv-eight feet. 



IJse. — The wood of the British oak is hard and tough, and resists great 

 force without fracture ; these qualities make it rank very high as a material 

 for shipbuilding. Its acorns formerly took a high place in European history 

 as food. 



The oak forests of central Europe furnished food for swine and other do- 

 mestic animals, and the people themselves subsisted largely upon acorns. It 

 was reo-arded as one of William the Conqueror's most oppressive acts that he 

 deprived the people of England of the use of the oak forests, where they had 

 been accustomed to collect the acorns for their swine. 



3. Q. bicolor, WiUd. (Silver-leaved Oak. Swamp White Oak.) Trunk 60 

 to 70 feet high, 4 feet in diameter ; bark scaly, and greeuish-white. Leaves 

 nearly sessile, downy, white underneath, bright-green above ; obovate, coarsely 

 and bluntlv toothed,' entire near the base. Acorns in pairs, peduncles longer 

 than the petioles; nut long, dark-brown ; cup shallow, and fringed with short, 

 slender, thread-like processes 



Geograph,/. — It is well distributed throughout the eastern and northeast- 

 ern United States. 



Etymo!ogij. — Bicolor, the specific name of this oak, is from the Latin word 

 bicolor, two colors, and refers to the contrast in the colors of the two sides of 

 the leaf, one of which is a bright-green, and the other a silvery white. Sdver- 

 leaved arises from the color of the under side of the leaf. The name stcamp 

 ivhite oak- is due to its fondness for wet ground. 



/■/sf. — The lumber is valuable for building purposes-, it is hard, durable, 

 and takes a good polish ; it also makes excellent fuel The bark is highly 

 charged wirli tannin, but is thin, and is not profitably obtained for markets 

 where thicker bark is available, 



4. Q. coccinea. Wang. {Scarlet Oak.) Trunk 60 to 80 feet in height, 

 sometimes 4 feet iu diameter; bark thick, gray outside and red within. 



