314 DECIDUOUS TREES. 



The Laurel-leaved Oak, Q. p. laurifolia, is similar to the 

 foregoing, but with larger leaves. Found principally in the 

 southern States. 



The Shingle Oak, Q. imbricaria, is a species with smooth- 

 edged, elliptic, pointed, glossy leaves, similar in form to the leaf of 

 the chionanthus. It is a native of the middle States, especially the 

 neighborhood of the Alleghanifes, and becomes a tree forty to fifty 

 feet in height. From Michaux' description we infer that it would 

 be a desirable oak to introduce in small grounds. 



The Live Oak. Q. virens. — Unfortunately this magnificent 

 evergreen of our southern coast is too tender to flourish far north 

 of the Gulf of Mexico. It is a tree of medium height only, but of 

 immense and grand expansion of trunk and branches. A writer 

 in Lippincott's Magazine mentions a specimen on the Habershaw 

 plantation near Savannah, Georgia, which has an extension of one 

 hundred and fifty feet between the extremities of its branches ! A 

 traveller mentions one at Goose Creek, near Charleston, S. C, the 

 trunk of which measures forty-five feet in circumference close to the 

 ground, eighteen and a half feet in its smallest part, with a branch 

 which measured twelve and a half feet in girt! It is one of the 

 grandest trees of the continent, as well as the most valuable of all 

 for ship-timber. 



Foreign Oaks. 



The British Oak. Q. pedunculata and Q. sessiflora. — ^These 

 varieties of the white oak group are so nearly the same as our 

 white oak, that it is not necessary to describe them separately. But 

 some odd varieties have come into existence, among which are the 

 following : 



The Moccas Oak, Q. p. pendula, is a variety of the British oak, 

 as pendulous as the weeping willow ; and of course a great curiosity. 

 It is said there are none of this sort in this country. An extraor- 



