400 



TRANS. ST. LOUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



of the fiower which may promote insect agency. Our hybrid 

 Verbenas differ from the hybrid oaks in having almost always 

 abortive anthers and in bearing scarcely any fertile seeds, while 

 at the same time they are so common that evidently they are 

 readily produced anew. 



Our Black-oak hybrids are the following : 



Probable Parents. Name under which described. Habitat. 



^. Catesbceiy^ aquatica; <^. sinuata, Walt. Car. 235, DC 1. c. 74. It 

 is quite probable that in the tree observed bj Dr. Mellichamp, several 

 years since, near Bluffton, S. C, we meet with Walters' obscure and long 

 ignored species. Mr. Ravenel has also observed a similar form in South 

 Carolina, and indicated cinerea as one of the parents. Dr. M.'s tree grows 

 on a sandy ridge with Catesbcei, falcata and virens; aquatica and the rarer 

 cinerea are not far off. It is 40 feet high and well grown, has a "very dark, 

 deeply cracked bark, which is red inside like Catesbcei." Leaves 4, rarely 

 5-6 inches long, about half as wide, attenuated at base into a partially 

 margined petiole, 3-6 lines long; leaf itself oblong to obvate, sometimes 

 almost rhombic; sinuate with shallow obtuse lobes to divaricately dentate- 

 lobed; lobes obtuse, or acute and bristle-pointed, dark green and shining 

 on upper surface, paler but glabrous and with some axillary down beneath ; 

 leaves imbricative in vernation ; in early youth both sides, the lower more 

 than the upper, are covered with the rusty, articulated pubescence of 

 Catesba;i; male flowers with 4 large, pointed anthers. Acorns sessile ; cup 

 hemispherical, turbinate, 8-10 lines wide, 5 or 6 high ; nut oval, 8-9 lines 

 high and 6-8 thick, \ or ^ covered by the cup. The leaves of seedlings are 

 lanceolate to obovate, spinulose-dentate or sinuate, rarely entire. In the 

 seedlings of this plant as well as of the regular Caiesbcei none of the ful- 

 vous glandular pubescence, which is so characteristic of the young leaf of 

 the grown plant, is yet developed. — One of the parents is doubtless ^. 

 Caiesbcei, as, among other characters, this abundant rusty down proves ; 

 as the other aquatica, cinerea, ox falcata, present themselves; falcata is 

 excluded by the form of its leaves ; cinerea might be the parent, as I for- 

 merly assumed, but the usually obovate outline of the leaf as well as the 

 character of the acorns seem to point rather to aquatica. 

 (^Continued on p. 539.) 



