432 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MAY 
The terminal leaves of this variety, which are sometimes 10-11 cm. long 
and 6-7 cm. wide, show a relationship with Q. nigra L., but typical Q. rhombica 
leaves occur on the same branches. The texture, color, and venation of all 
the leaves are those of Q. rhombica, and the fruit with a cup 2.5 cm. in diame- 
ter is that of that species, as are the winter buds and branchlets. 
A single tree in low woods, Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas, E. J. 
Palmer, September 14, 1917 (no. 1274, type). 
QUERCUS LAURIFOLIA Michx.—This is one of the least variable 
of the southern oaks. The branchlets are always glabrous, and the 
leaves, which are thicker than those of Q. Phellos L., are dark green, 
very lustrous, and glabrous. On the branches figured by MICHAUX 
the leaves are generally elliptic, but sometimes slightly broadest 
above the middle, acuminate at the ends, and 6-12.5 cm. in length. 
Occasionally trees occur on which lanceolate leaves are found, but 
in its most common form the leaves of the laurel oak are elliptic and 
usually not more than 7-8 cm. in length. The leaves of seedlings 
in their first season are broadly obovate, rounded and 3-toothed 
or lobed at apex, or are often furnished above the middle with short 
acute lobes. On leading shoots oblong-obovate leaves acute or 
rounded at apex sometimes occur, and such leaves are occasion- 
ally 3-lobed at apex. When the ends of branchlets have been 
broken or injured by cattle or horses, summer shoots growing 
from lateral buds often produce only small narrow oblong leaves 
irregularly divided into narrow acuminate apiculate lobes, but 
sometimes at the base of summer shoots the leaves are much larger, 
oblong-obovate, rounded, and obtusely lobed at apex. Usually 
the leaves of Q. laurifolia are acute at apex, but occasionally obovate 
leaves rounded at apex are found among leaves of normal shape; 
and on some individual trees all the leaves, although varying much 
in width, are of this shape. It was for a tree with such leaves that 
MicHAUx proposed the name of 
QUERCUS LAURIFOLIA (HYBRIDA) Michx. Hist. Chénes Amér. I. 
18. 1801.—Differing from the type in its obovate leaves rounded 
at apex. 
MIcHAUX, although he suggested that this tree might have been a hybrid 
between the laurel and water oaks, apparently believed that it was a mere 
variety of the former, which he says it resembled in all other characters. This 
variety of the laurel oak, although widely distributed, is not common. It is the 
only form of the laurel oak which I have seen from Virginia, where it was col- 
