SH 



The Oaks 



cral scales ovate; calyx- lobes hairy; styles short, broad, spreading, and light red. 

 The fruit ripens in the first season, solitary or in spike-like clusters of 2 to 5, on 

 short brown stalks; the nut is ovoid or oblong-ovoid, 2 to 2.5 cm. long, brown 

 and shining, its seed sweet and hght yellow; cup hemispheric, often somewhat con- 

 stricted at the base, 1.5 to 2 cm. across, light yellow-brown and hairy inside, em- 

 bracing about one third of the nut, covered with close, thin, brown, sharp -pointed, 

 densely hairy scales. 



The wood is hard, strong and tough, close-grained, and brown or yellow-brown 

 with a satiny surface; its specific gravity is about 0.95. It has been largely used 

 in ship building and in other structural work. The nuts were gathered and eaten 

 by the Indians, who roasted them for food and also expressed an oil from them. 

 These fruits are produced in great abundance and afford a valuable food for 

 swine. 



This is one of the most rapid growing of the American oaks as well as the 

 grandest and most beautiful, and in the south it is one of the highly esteemed 

 shade trees. It often harbors quantities of air-plants. 



31. TWIN LIVE OAK — Quercus geminata Small 



Usually a shrub, this Uve oak rarely becomes a tree, with a maximum height of 



12 meters and a trunk diameter of 6 dm. 

 It occurs in sandy scrub lands from 

 Georgia to Florida and Mississippi. 



The trunk is seldom upright, but 

 usually ascending or bent. The bark is 

 pale gray. The twigs are rather stout, 

 yellowish downy, becoming quite smooth 

 and light brown, finally gray to nearly 

 black. The leaves are narrowly oblong, 

 elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, blunt or 

 pointed, usually gradually narrowed at 

 the base, strongly revolute on the mar- 

 gin. They are thin, tough and parch- 

 ment-hke, wrinkled, reticulate, with the 

 principal veins impressed, and smooth 

 above, grayish and downy, with a promi- 

 nent yellow midrib beneath. They per- 

 sist for about a year; the petiole is stout, 

 2 to 6 mm. long. The fruit ripens the 

 first year, usually in pairs, at the end of 

 a peduncle 4 cm. long or more; nut ovoid or narrowly ovoid, 10 to 17 mm. long, 

 with prominent, persistent styles, dark brown and shining; shell very thin; cup 

 top-shaped, 10 to 12 mm. across, hght brown and hairy inside, thin and embracing 



Fig. 267. — Twin Live Oak. 



