420 cuptJLiFERuE. (OAK FAMILY.) 



ORDER 128. CUPUt-IFER^E. (OAK FAMILY.) 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate entire or lobed straight-veined stipulate 

 leaves, and monoecious apetalous flowers. Sterile flowers in pendulous 

 slender or capitate aments. Calyx scale-like, or regular and 4 - 6-lobed. 

 Stamens few. Fertile flowers single or clustered, furnished with an invo- 

 lucre which encloses the fruit, or forms a cup at its base. Ovary 2-7- 

 celled, with 1-2 pendulous anatropous ovules in each cell. Stigmas as 

 many as the cells. Fruit 1-celled, 1-seeded. Albumen none. Cotyle- 

 dons thick and fleshy. Radicle superior. 



Synopsis. 



* Fertile flowers single, or few in a cluster. 



1. QUERCUS. Nut solitary, with the base enclosed in a scaly involucre. 



2. CASTANEA. Nuts 1-3, enclosed in a 4-valved spiny involucre ; sterile aments elongated, 



erect. 



3. FAGUS. Nuts 2, 3-angled, enclosed in a somewhat spiny 4-valved involucre : sterile 



aments capitate, pendulous. 



4. CORYLUS. Nut solitary, bony, enclosed in a leafy lacerated involucre. 



* * Fertile flowers spiked. 



5. CARPINUS. Nuts 1 - 2, in the axil of an open leafy involucre. 



6. OSTRYA. Nut solitary, enclosed in a membranaceous inflated involucre. 



1. QUERCUS, L. OAK. 



Sterile ament slender, bractless, pendulous. Calyx unequally 6 - 8-parted. 

 Stamens 6-12, slender : anthers 2-celled. Fertile flowers axillary, solitary, or 

 few in a cluster. Calyx 6-cleft or denticulate, adnate to the 3 - 4-celled ovary. 

 Ovules 2 in each cell. Stigmas obtuse. Nut (Acorn) oblong or hemispherical, 

 partly (rarely wholly) enclosed in the cup-shaped scaly involucre. Cotyledons 

 very thick, plano-convex. Trees or shrubs, with simple entire or lobed leaves. 

 Stipules caducous. 



1. Fruit biennial. t 



* Leaves entire, short-petioled ; those on vigorous shoots often lobed or toothed. 



1. Q. Phellos, L. (WILLOW-OAK.) Leaves (2' -3' long) lanceolate or 

 linear-lanceolate, bristle-awned, scurfy, like the branchlets, when young, becom- 

 ing smooth on both sides ; fruit small, sessile ; cup flattish, enclosing the base of 

 the hemispherical nut. Margins of swamps and streams, Florida to Missis- 

 sippi, and northward. A slender tree, 40 - 50 high. 



Var. laurifolia. (Q. laurifolia, Michx.) Leaves larger (3' -4' long), 

 oblong-lanceolate; cup deeper and more pointed at the base. Light uplands, 

 Florida to North Carolina. A tree commonly larger than the preceding. 



Var. arenaria. (Q. myrtifolia, Willd. ?) Shrubby (4 - 8 high) ; leaves 

 small ('- 1' long), rigid, oblong or obovate, obtuse or barely pointed, with the 

 margins revolute. Dry sand ridges, along the coast of Florida and Georgia. 



2. Q. imbricaria, Michx. (SHINGLE-OAK.) Leaves lanceolate-oblong, 

 acute or obtuse at each end, mucronate, pale and downy beneath, deciduous ; 



