OAK FAMILY 



Leaves. — Alternate, five to eight inches long, three to six inches 

 wide, oblong-obovate, base wedge-shaped or rounded, five-lobed ; 

 lowest pair of lobes small, middle pair broad and undulate or lobed, 

 terminal lobe itself three-lobed ; midrib broad, yellow, downy, pri- 

 mary' veins conspicuous. They come out of 

 the bud convolute, dark red above, densely 

 covered with thick orange brown tomentum ; 

 when full grown are thick, leathery, deep 

 dark green, with stellate tufts of hairs scat- 

 tered over the upper surface, the under sur- 

 face covered with pale pubescence. In au- 

 tumn they turn dull yellow or brown. Peti- 

 ole stout, flattened, downy. Stipules brown, 

 caducous. 



Flowers. — May, when leaves are one-third 

 grown. Staminate flowers borne on aments 

 three to four inches long, hairy. Calyx 

 hairy, yellow ; segments five, ovate, acute, 

 laciniate ; anthers yellow, hairy. Pistillate 

 flowers sessile or on peduncles ; stigmas 

 bright red. 



Acorns. — Annual, sessile or stalked. Nuts one-half to one inch 

 long, oval or ovoid, reddish brown, sometimes striped with darker 

 brown, sometimes pubescent at apex. Cup cup-shaped or turbi- 

 nate, rarely saucer-shaped, usually enclosing one-third to one-half 

 the nut, reddish brown, tomentose, covered with close free scales. 



Post Oak, Qucrcus minor. 

 Acorns y^' to i' long. 



The Post Oak loves to grow at the edge of the timber-land, 

 sheltered but not crowded by other trees. The bark is nearly 

 the color, but appears thicker than that of a White Oak 

 of the same age. It has a fine-checked, "alligator-skin" 

 appearance but is even more regular, the vertical fucrows 

 being so continuous as to suggest an up and down corru- 

 gation ; this feature is a conspicuous characteristic of the 

 trunk. 



The tree has a straggling ungraceful habit of growth com- 

 pensated by the pleasing arrangement of the leaves ; the 

 branches do not subdivide freely but put out new shoots all 

 along their length, which gives them a close-wreathed appear- 

 ance ; and so the foliage is distributed evenly through the tree 

 instead of forming a canopy. The leaves are coarse and rough 

 on both sides. As to their shape, there seem to be two varie- 

 ties of tree ; on one tree the leaves have uniformly the char- 



334 



