The JVhitt Oak. 217 



is repressed by the severity of the winter. In the lower part of 

 the Southern States, in the Floridas and Lower Louisiana, it is 

 found only on the borders of the swamps with a few other trees, 

 which, likewise, shun a dry and barren soil. The white oak is 

 observed also to be uncommon on lands of extraordinary fertility, 

 like those of Kentucky and Tennessee, and of all the spacious 

 valleys watered by the western rivers. It abounds chiefly in the 

 Middle States, particularly in that part of Pennsylvania and Vir- 

 ginia which lie between the AUeghanies and the Ohio, a distance 

 of about one hundred and fifty miles, where nine-tenths of the for- 

 ests are frequently composed of these trees, whose healthful ap- 

 pearance evinces the favorable nature of the soil. East of the 

 mountains, this tree is found in every exposure, and in every soil 

 which is not extremely dry or subject to long inundations; but the 

 largest stocks grow in humid places. In the western districts, 

 where it composes entire forests, the face of the country is undu- 

 lated, and the yellow soil, consisting partly of clay with calca- 

 reous stones, yields abundant crops of wheat. 



The white oak attains the elevation of seventy or eighty feet 

 with a diameter of six or seven feet; but its proportions vary with 

 the soil and climate. The leaves are regularly and obliquely di- 

 vided into oblong, rounded lobes, destitute of points: the sections 

 are deepest in the most humid soils. Soon after their unfolding, 

 they are reddish above, and white and downy beneath; when fully 

 grown, they are smooth and of a light green on the upper surface 

 and glaucous beneath. In autumn they change to a bright violet 

 color, and form an agreeable contrast with the surrounding foliage 

 which has not yet suffered by the frost. This is the only oak on 

 which a few of the dried leaves persist till the circulation is re- 

 newed in the spring. By this peculiarity and by the whiteness of 

 the bark, from which it derives its name, it is easily distinguisha- 

 ble in the winter. This tree puts forth flowers in May, which are 

 succeeded by acorns of an oval form, large, very sweet, contain- 

 ed in rough, shallow, grayish cups, and borne singly or in pairs, 

 by peduncles eight or ten hues in length, attached as in all spe- 

 cies of annual fructification, to the shoots of the season. The 

 fruit of the white oak is rarely abundant, and frequently for seve- 

 ral years in succession a few handfuls of acorns could hardly be 

 collected in a large forest where the tree is multiplied. Some 

 stocks produce acorns of a deep blue color. 



The bark of the trunk of the white oak is often variegated with 

 large, black spots. On stocks of less than sixteen inches in di- 

 ameter the epidermis is divided into squares; on old trees, grow- 

 ing in moist grounds, it is in the form of plates laterally attached. 

 28 



