332 



The Oaks 



used to make split baskets, also for fencing and fuel. The sweet fruit is largely 

 eaten by children, negroes, and various animals. 



It is the handsomest of the Chestnut leaved oaks and deserves extensive plant- 

 ing as a very ornamental shade tree in moist situations southward. 



A cross with the Bur oak, Q. macrocarpa Michaux, is reported from near Cov- 

 ington, Tennessee. 



52. SWAMP WHITE OAK — Quercus bicolor WiUdenow 



Quercus Prinus platanoides Lambert. Quercus plaianoides Sudworth 



The Swamp oak, as it is also called, is a majestic tree of rich soils along streams 

 and swamps from Maine and Quebec to Michigan, southward to Georgia and 

 Arkansas, attaining a maximum height of 36 meters, with a trunk diameter of 

 2.5 m. It is occasionally called Blue oak. 



The trunk is tall and straight, more or less buttressed at the base. The lower 



branches are stout, horizontal or often droop- 

 ing; the tree, when not crowded, sometimes 

 wider than high. The bark is up to 5 cm. 

 thick, deeply fissured into nearly flat, usually 

 confluent ridges, covered by close gray-brown 

 or red-brown scales; on younger stems it is 

 smooth, reddish to brown, and separates into 

 thin large plates which peel off much as in 

 the Sycamore tree. The twigs are stout, green, 

 slightly hairy and shining, becoming smooth 

 or nearly so, and passing through various 

 shades of brown to dark brown or purplish, 

 often somewhat glaucous. The winter buds 

 are broadly ovoid to oval, blunt or sharp- 

 pointed, about 3 mm. long and brown. The 

 Fig. 289. -Swamp White Oak. i^^^^^ ^^g obovate or oblong-obovate, 0.5 to 



2 dm. long, pointed or rounded at the apex, narrowed and usually wedge-shaped 

 at the base, coarsely roimd-toothed, sometimes almost lobed ; they are rather thick, 

 deep green and somewhat shining, with stout roimded pale midrib above, pale 

 or nearly white, downy and prominently veined beneath, turning dull yellowish or 

 orange-brown before falling late in the autumn; the leaf-stalk is i to 3 cm. long, 

 stout, flattened and grooved. The flowers appear in April or May, the staminate 

 in clustered numerous slender hairy catkins 5 to 7 cm. long; calyx yellowish green, 

 hairy, 5- to 9-pointed ; stamens slightly exserted ; anthers oblong, notched, smooth 

 and yellow. The pistillate flowers are in spikes on long white- woolly peduncles; 

 involucres thick, white and woolly; styles very short, broad and spreading, bright 

 red. The fruit ripens the first autumn, solitary or 2 together on long slender 

 brown peduncles 2.5 to 10 cm. long; nut oblong or oblong-ovoid, 2 to 3 cm. long. 



