102 TIMBER TREES OF NORTH CAROLINA. 



wood forests in the middle and the lower part of the Piedmont 

 plateau. Large trees are often hollow or red-hearted. 



The forest tent caterpillar, Clisioeampa disstria, Huebner, is 

 often destructive to the foliage, and ranch injury is also caused, 

 especially to young trees, by the oak pruner, Elaphidion villosum, 

 Fabricius. 



The leaves are inversely egg-shaped, thicker and less deeply 

 cut than those of the scarlet oak, and usually darker in color and 

 less polished. The small acorn, nearly half enclosed in a thick 

 scaly cup, contains a yellowish and very bitter kernel. 



The buds are thick, pyramidal, and downy. There are many 

 deeply penetrating lateral as well as superficial running roots. 



The wood is heavy, hard, strong, not tough, coarse-grained, lia- 

 ble to check in drying; bright brown tinged with red in color; 

 the sapwood much lighter. It is used for cooperage, construction, 

 etc. The bark is largely used for tanning. Quercitron, a valua- 

 ble yellow dye, is derived from the inner bark, which has astrin- 

 gent medicinal properties. 



It has been cut extensively throughout the Piedmont plateau 

 for building material and cooperage, and locally the bark has 

 been employed to a considerable extent in tanning. 



Quercus oatesbsei, Miehaux. 



(fork-leaved black-jack oak. sand black-jack oak. scrub 

 oak. turkey oak.) 



A small tree, with oval crown, numerous irregular drooping 

 branches, and deeply furrowed black bark, reaching a height of 

 about 50 and a diameter of 2 feet. 



It occurs upon barren sandy hills and ridges from Gates 

 county, N. C, to central Florida, and along the coast to eastern 

 Louisiana. 



In this State (fig. 23, p. 99) it is common south of the Nense 

 river in the pine barrens, where it has a height of about 20 feet 

 and a diameter of 8 inches. 



Fork-leaved black-jack oak,.generally bears fruit annnally, and 

 seedlings are very abundant on dry sandy soil. Its growth is 

 rapid, but in North Carolina the tree seldom lives longer than 40 



