82 CHINESE ECONOMIC TREES 



deciduous species. Occasionally it forms pure stands. The wood of this 

 tree is used for boat building and the making of plows and tool handles. 

 When thoroughly impregnated with creosote it makes good railroad ties, 

 mine-props and foundation timber. From the seeds, an oil suitable for 

 cooking and lighting, is sometimes extracted. 



Fagus engleriana Seeman. 



Tree 15 m. high with brownish twigs. Leaves up to 5.8 cm. long, 

 4.2 cm. wide, papery, oblong-ovate or obovate, short pointed, rounded or 

 obtuse at the base, bright green above, gray-green, glabrous or glaucescent 

 below, shallowly crenate or slightly toothed, with 12-13 pairs of lateral 

 nerves which curve near the margin; petiole 1 cm. long. Fruit ovoid 

 with gray-brown hairy scales, opening into 4 valves, about 1.5 cm. long 

 on a glabrous stalk 7.5 cm. long. Nuts enclosed, oval or 3 angled, 

 pointed, hairy. 



Hupeh and Szechuan. 



This beech is reported to form pure stands with no individuals 

 attaining any great size. Dr. Augustine Henry discovered it in western 

 Hupeh growing on wooded clifis. 



A third species Fagus liicida, based on incomplete material, has been 

 proposed by Rehder and Wilson. The leaves of this species are green on 

 both sides with more or less sinuate margins and irregular teeth sometimes 

 ending in mucronate tips. Until the flowers and fruits are discovered 

 this species may be disregarded for practical purposes. 



CASTANEA 



Deciduous trees or shrubs. Buds with few overlapping scales. Leaves 

 alternate, serrate, oblong to lanceolate, pinnately veined, the veins ending 

 in the sharp bristle-tipped teeth. Flowers monoecious, apetalous, strongly 

 scented, in slender, elongated, upright aments. The lower anients bear 

 only staminate flowers, the pistillate flowers being borne only at the base 

 of the uppermost aments of the branch. Staminate flowers 2-3, crowded 

 in a bract; calyx 6 parted; stamens 10-20. Pistillate sessile, solitary or 

 2-3 together, inclosed in a scaly involucre with a bract and 2 bracteoles 

 at the base; styles 6; ovary inferior, 6 celled, 2 ovules in each cell. Fruit 

 usually 1-3, or occasionally more nuts in an involucre or bur armed with 

 branched spines. The bur splits open at maturity into 2-4 valves. 



