302 OAK FAMILY. 



§ 1. Sterile flowers with a distinct 4 - 7-hbed calyx and 3-20 slender stamens : fertile 



flowers 1-iina cap or bw-like involucre. 

 # Sterile flowers clustered in slender catMns : their brads inconspicuous or deciduous. 



1. QUEECUS. Stamens 3 - 12. Fertile flower only one in the bud-like involucre, 



which becomes a scaly cup. Stigma 3-lobed. Nut (acorn) terete, with a firm 

 shell, from which the thick cotjdedons do not emerge in germination. (Les- 

 sons, p. 130, fig. 299; p. 13, fig. 21, 22.) 



2. CASTANEA. Stamens 8-20. Fertile flowers few (commonly 3) in each in- 



volucre, one or more ripening; stigmas mostly 6 or 7, bristle-shaped. Nuts 

 coriaceous, ovoid, when more than one flattened on one or both sides, en- 

 closed in the hard and thick very prickly bur-like at length 4-valved invo- 

 lucre. Cotyledons somewhat folded together and cohering, remaining under 

 ground in gennination. 



* » Sterile flowers in smaU heads on drooping peduncles. 



3. FAGUS. Calyx of sterile flowers bell-shaped, 5 - 7-cleft, containing 8-16 long 



stamens. Fertile flowers 2 together ou the summit of a scaly-bracted pe- 

 duncle; the innermost scales uniting form the 4-lobed involucre: ovary 

 3-celled when young, crowned by 6 awl-shaped calyx-teeth and a 3-cleft or 

 3 thread-like styles : in fmit a pair of sharply 3-sided nuts in the 4-cleft soft- 

 prickly rigid involucre. Cotyledons thick, somewhat crumpled together, but 

 rising and expanding in germination. (Lessons, p. 11, flg. 13-15.) 



§ 2. Sterile flowers consisting of a few short stamens partly adhering to the bract^ 

 and destitute of any p'oper calyx; the anthers l-cdled : fertile flowers in 

 pairs under eadi bract of a head^ spike, or short catkin, each wiih one or two 

 bractlets, forming afoliaceous or sac-like involucre to the nut. Sterile catims 

 rather dense, 

 i. COEYLUS. Scales of the sterile catkin consisting of a bract to the inside of 

 which 2 bractlets and several stamens adhere. Fertile flowers in a little 

 head, like a scaly bud; stigmas 2, long and red. Nut rather large, bony, 

 wholly or partly enclosed in a leaf-like or tubular and cut-lobed or toothed 

 involucre. 

 6. OSTRYA. Scales of the sterile catkin simple. Fertile flowers in a sort of 

 slender catkin, its bracts deciduous, each flower an ovary tipped with 2 long 

 slender stigmas and enclosed in a tubular bractlet, which becomes a bladdery 

 greenish- white oblong bag, in the bottom of which is the little nut: these 

 together form a sort of hop-like fruit. 

 6. CARPINUS. Sterile catkin as in Ostrya. Fertile flowers in a sort of slender 

 loose catkin ; each with a pair of separate 3-lobed bractlets, which become 

 leaf-like, one each side of the small nerved nut. 



1. QUEECUS, OAK. (The classical Latin name.) Mowers in spring; 

 acorns ripe in autumn. All but one of the following species are natives 

 of the country. 



§ 1. Annualfruited Oaks, the acorns maturing the autumn of the first year, there- 

 fore on the wood of the season, usually in the axil of the leaves, out of 

 which they are often raised on a peduncle : kernel comnwrdy sweet-tasted: 

 no bristles on the lobes or teeth of the leaves. 

 * White Oaks, vnth lyrately or sinuately pinnatifid and deciduous haves. 

 -I- European tree, more or less planted eastward. 

 Q. R6bur, Eukopean or English Oak. Belongs to the same section 

 with our White Oak ; but leaves smaller, not glaucous beneath, sinuate-lobed, 

 but hardly pinnatifid ; acorn oblong, over 1' long, — one or a few in a cluster 

 which is nearly sessile in the axils in vai". sessilifloea, — raised ou a slender 

 peduncle in var. pedunculata. 



M- 4- Native species : leaves pale or whitish beneath. 

 Q. d.lba, White Oak. Rich soil : lai-ge tree with whitish bark ; leaves 

 soon smooth, bright green above, whitish beneath, with 3-9 oblong or linear 

 obtuse and mostly entire oblique lobes ; the shallow rough cup very much 

 shorter than the ovoid-oblong (about 1' long) acorn ; seed edible. 



Q. obtuslloba. Post Oak, Rough or Box White Oak. Small tree in 

 barren soil, commonest S., with very durable wood ; thickish leaves grajish 



