Quercus.] LXXII. CUPULIFER^. 487 



Male flowers in slender pendulous racemes, bractebles ovate-lanceolate, a 

 little longer than perianth. Pemale flowers in short axillary spikes, style 

 filiform, with capitate and often hifid apex. Fruit subsessile on the pre- 

 vious year's wood, solitary or ia clusters of 2-3, cupule at flrst enclosing 

 the acorn, opening afterwards, scales numerous, free, linear or subulate, 

 hoary, the outer reflexed, the inner erect ; acorn subglobose, glabrous, 

 shining, more than half immersed in the cup, which is 1^ in. diam. 



Nepal, Sikkim (3000-5000 ft.), Kasia. Japan, Korea, North and West China. 

 Fl. March-May. The young leaves appear with or after the flowers (in. Japan, 

 in May). The wood has middle-sized pores and broad medullary rays. This 

 is one of the species of Oak on which the Japanese Oak-silkworm {Yamamai 

 or Yama mayu, Mountain Cocoon) lives, which yields a strong but rough and 

 hard silk, spun in Japan with cotton or other silk, but not much exported. 

 The tree is either planted in avenues or as short rotation coppice-wood, which is 

 cut over every third or fifth year. The eggs (glued on strips of paper) are tied to 

 the Oak-bushes when the buds begin to swell ; sometimes they are bred under 

 cover on Oak-bushes placed in water, and put out upon the trees when they are 

 a few weeks old. This silkworm is also raised on the hills of the Shantung and 

 Sechuen districts in China (Ostr. Ungar. Expedition nach Siam China u. Japan, 

 1872, Append. 172, 282). 



Q. serrata, Eoxb. Fl. Ind. iii. 641 ; 111. in Herb. Kew, 2393, has male and 

 female flowers, with much soft dark-brown down (Eoxb.), in long erect panicu- 

 late spikes, and probably is Gastanopsis indica, A. DO. 



15. Q. cocdfera, Linn. ; Sibthorp. M. Grseca, t. 944 ; Eeichenb. Fl. Germ, 

 t. 643 ; Kotschy 1. c. t. 29. — Ghene kermh, Fr. A shrub, sometimes a 

 small tree, branohlets and young leaves with scattered stellate hairs. Leaves 

 ovate or oblong-ovate, dentate with spinescent teeth, small, firm, coriaceous, 

 glabrous, shining, dark green, with prominent reticulate' veins and indistinct 

 lateral nerves. Male flowers distant, in lax pendulous catkins, perianth 2-6- 

 fid ; stamens 2-6, anthers glabrous, apiculate ; styles subulate, recurved. Fruit 

 solitary, sessile on the previous year's wood, scales of cup connate at the base, 

 upper part free, linear, reflexed, the innermost scales erect. Forms large 

 extent of low brushwood on dry hills in the Mediterranean region, used as 

 fuel, the bark for tanning ; a Coccus which lives on this species was formerly 

 collected and used largely as a dye. 



Q. calliprinos, Webb ; DC. Prodr. xvi. ii. 54 — Syn. Q. pseudococcifera, Hook. 

 Trans. Linn. Soc. xxxiii. 381, not Desf. ; Ghene garrigue, Fr. — ^is supposed to 

 differ from Q. cocdfera, by oblong leaves with cordate base, the teeth rarely spin- 

 escent, and a larger cup with longer but not spinescent scales ; but these charac- 

 ters are not constant, and there are intermediate forms, so that possibly they may 

 eventually be regarded as one species only. Mediterranean region and Western 

 Asia to the borders of Mesopotamia. Often a low shrub only, but where protected 

 grows into a stately tree. The famous Oak of Mamre, called" Abraham's Oak," 

 belongs to this species ; Hooker (1. c. t. 36) gives a sketch of it, and states that 

 this species is by fax the most abundant tree throughout Syria, covering the 

 rocky hiUs, of Palestine especially, with a dense, brushwood of trees 8-12 ft. 

 high, branching from the base, thickly covered with small evergreen rigid leaves 

 and bearing acorns copiously, which like the cup are exceedingly variable in 

 shape. 



16. Q. annulata, Smith.— Tab. LXV.— DC.Prodr. xvi. ii. 100.— Vern. 

 Bran, bren, banni, indri, Pb. ; Pharonj, phanat, phaliant, Kamaon. 



