1915-] TRELEASE— LARGE FRUITED AMERICAN OAKS. 9 



tion is to give a connected account of these large- fruited species, 

 because of this popular interest that they possess. 



The first of the large-fruited tropical American species to be 

 made known is Quercus Skiuneri* collected by Hartweg at Quezalte- 

 nango, Guatemala, which Bentham noted and illustrated in 1841 

 and described the following year. Skinner's oak is a large tree 

 with long-petioled, ovate, acute, rather blunt-based aristately toothed 

 glabrous leaves about 5X9 cm., producing solitary or paired short- 

 stalked fruit resembling that of our common red oak but on a much 

 larger scale, the shallow cup 50 mm. in diameter and the short- 

 ovoid acorn of about that length. It is a red oak with the usual 

 characters of apical abortive ovules and tomentose interior of the 

 shell, but the latter is thicker than usual and with the septa intruded 

 into the kernel so as to make the latter somewhat three-lobed. Of 

 recent years Q. Skinneri has been collected only by Cook and Griggs, 

 at the Finca Sepacuite, Guatemala. A similar, if not the same, red 

 oak, but with larger duller winter buds and lance-elliptical leaves as 

 much as 20 cm. long, was collected at Chinantla, in the Mexican 

 State of Oaxaca, by Liebmann in the fall of 1842, but of it nothing 

 else is known : as with Furcrcsa longceva, the species seems to range 

 extensively through the Cordillera. 



Closely related to Skinner's oak is a species recently collected by 

 Dr. Purpus in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the similar acorns of 

 which may reach a diameter of over 35 mm., their very shallow cups, 

 with thickened scales, sometimes measuring 45 mm. across. This, 

 which differs markedly from Quercus Skinneri in having acutely 

 lanceolate very short-stalked leaves about 5 X 12 cm., may be called 

 Q. chiapasensis.^ Like the other oaks here under consideration, it 

 appears to become a tree of very large size. 



The year following the full description of Quercus Skinneri, the 

 Belgian botanists Martens and Galeotti described under the name 



* Quercus Skinneri Bentham, Gard. Chron. 1841 : 16. /. ; PI. Hartweg. 90. 

 1842. — Hooker, Icones Plant. 5. pi. 402. — Liebmann-Oersted, /. c. pi. B, 3. 



° Quercus chiapasensis n. sp. Arbor grandis : foliis brevipetiolatis, acutis, 

 lanceolatis, aristato-dentatis ; f ructu magna ; cupula plana, glabra, crassa ; 

 glande semiglobosa, 35 mm. diametro. Q. Skinneri affinis. 



