Bear Oak 



297 



trunk. The bark is. 2.5 cm. thick, with rather close plate-like scales of a grayish 

 or gray-brown color. The twigs are slender, thickly velvety, becoming slightly 

 hairy and dark reddish brown. The buds are ovoid, 6 mm. long, often 4-angled, 

 reddish or brown. The leaves are ovate to oblong in outhne, 1.5 to 3 dm. long; 

 the 5 to II lobes are triangular-lanceolate or narrowly wedge-shaped, usually 

 spreading, sometimes toothed or lobed near the sharp-pointed apex, the sinuses 

 wide, deep and roimded at the bottom, the base gradually narrowed and wedge- 

 shaped, truncate or rounded. They are dark green and very shining above, pale 

 or silvery white and persistently woolly beneath, becoming bright red or yellow be- 

 fore falling in the autumn; the petiole is stout and hairy, 1.5 to 5 cm. long. The 

 flowers appear with the leaves, the staminate in slender hairy catkins, 5 to 7.5 cm. 

 long, their calyx hairy, its 4 or 5 lobes roimded and reddish; stamens 4 or 5, ex- 

 serted, their anthers notched and yellow. The pistillate flowers are solitary or 2 

 or 3 together on short hairy stalks; involucral scales hairy; styles elongated, spread- 

 ing and dark red. The fruit, which ripens in the autumn of the second season, is 

 short-stalked or almost stalkless; nut subglobose, about i cm. long, light yellowish 

 brown; shell thin, woolly inside; cup shallowly top-shaped, smooth on the inner 

 surface, embracing about one half of nut, its scales oblong, pale and hairy. 



The wood is hard, strong and tough, rather close-grained, light reddish brown. 

 It is sawn into lumber and highly valued for construction. 



This species is very similar indeed to forms of the Spanish oak. 



14. BEAR OAK — Quercus ilicifolia Wangenheim 

 Qiiercus rubra nana Marshall. Querctis nana (Marshall) Sargent 



Usually a shrub with irregular stems and very stiff branches, forming dense 

 thickets over wide areas of sterile lands from 

 Maine to Ohio, North Carolina and Kentucky. 

 It occasionally becomes a tree, reaching its 

 greatest dimensions in New Jersey and Penn- 

 sylvania, a^height of 7 meters, with a trunk di- 

 ameter of 2 dm. 



As a tree the branches are much divided, 

 spreading, forming a round-topped head. The 

 bark is thin, smooth, except for small close thin 

 scales, and grayish brown. The twigs are 

 slender, quite hairy, becoming red, brown or 

 gray, and finally smooth or very nearly so. The 

 winter buds are ovoid, blunt, 3 mm. long, with 

 hairy brown scales. The leaves are obovate or 

 oval in outline, 5 to 12.5 cm. long, the $ to 7 

 short, triangular or ovate lobes bristle-tipped 

 and sometimes toothed, their sinuses wide and shallow, the base broadly or nar- 



FiG. 249. — Bear Oak. 



