292 



The Oaks 



appear when the leaves are about one fourth unfolded, the staminate in slightly 

 hairy catkins 5 to 8 cm. long, their calyx usually reddish and hairy; stamens 

 about as long as the calyx, their anthers oblong, notched at each end. The pis- 

 tillate flowers are on short, stout, woolly, i- to 3-flowered pedimcles; involucral 

 scales and the 4- to 7-lobed calyx hairy; styles 3, spreading or recurved and dark 

 colored. The fruit, ripening in the autumn of the second season, is sessile, soK- 

 tary or in pairs; nut eUipsoid or varying from cylindric to globose-ovoid, 12 to 

 18 mm. long, brown, often striped and slightly hairy; shell thin, dark and velvety 

 inside; seed yellow and bitterish; cup top-shaped, 12 to 18 mm. across, narrowed 

 at the base, reddish brown inside, embracing one third to one half of nut; scales 

 ovate, blunt and imbricated. 



Wood coarse-grained, resembling that of Q. velutina. 



9. TEXAN OAK — Qnercus texana Buckley 



A small tree with spreading branches, in dry, rocky soil of southern and west- 

 em Texas, where it is 

 called Red oak. Spotted 

 oak, and Spanish oak. 



The bark is light brown 

 and scaly. The twigs are 

 slender, smooth, reddish or 

 grayish brown, the win- 

 ter buds elliptic, about 3 

 mm. long, blimt, dark 

 brown and smooth. The 

 leaves are oblong to obo- 

 vate in outUne, 5 to 10 

 cm. long, the 3 to 7 lobes 

 narrowly triangular to 

 ovate, the terminal one 

 the longest, sometimes 

 toothed, the lobes bristle- 

 pointed, the sinuses ob- 

 lique and broad; they are 

 deep green, smooth, some- 

 what shining above, yel- 

 lowish or brownish, 

 smooth or slightly hairy, 

 with prominent reddish venation beneath. The leaf-stalk is slender, i to 3 cm. 

 long, smooth and red. The flowers appear with the unfolding leaves, the stami- 

 nate in rather many-flowered clustered slender hairy catkins 4 to 6 cm. long. The 

 fruit ripens in the autumn of the second year, and is nearly sessile; nut oblong 



Fig. 244. — Texan Oak. 



