OAK FAMILY 



rounded or acute. They come out of the bud convolute, yellow 

 green or bronze, shining above, very pubescent below. When full 

 grown are thick, firm, dark yellow green, somewhat shining above, 

 pale green and pubescent below ; midribs stout, \ellow, primary 

 veins conspicuous. In autumn they turn a dull \ellow soon chang- 

 ing into a yellow brown. Petioles stout or slender, short. Stipules 

 linear to lanceolate, caducous. 



Fhnvi-rs. — May, when leaves are one-third grown. Staminate 

 flowers are borne in hairy aments two to three inches long; calyx 

 pale yellow, hairy, deeply seven to nine-lobed ; stamens seven to 

 nine ; anthers bright yellow. Pistillate flowers on short spikes ; pe- 

 duncles green, stout, hairy ; involucral scales hairy ; stigmas short, 

 bright red. 



Acorns. — Annual, singly or in pairs ; nut oval, rounded or acute 

 at ape.x, bright chestnut brown, shining, one and a quarter to one 

 and one-half inches in length; cup, cup-shaped or turbinate, usu- 

 ally inclosing one-half or one-third of the nut, thin, light brown and 

 downy within, reddish brown and rough outside, tuberculate near 

 the base. Scales small, much crowded toward the rim sometimes 

 making a fringe. Kernel white, sweetish. 



The Chestnut Oak, Q. primis, and the Yellow Oak, Q. acti- 

 miiiaia, have manv chai-acters in coninion. The e.xtrenie 

 t3'pical forms of each differ, but they varv toward each other 

 until the dividing line is difficult to 

 draw ; at their widest they are no far- 

 ther apart than the different forms of 

 the black oaks. The Chestnut Oak is 

 accredited in the books to dry soil and 

 sandy ridges btit it loves wet situa- 

 tions as well. The little streams of 

 northern C)hio which luake their wa}' 

 into Lake Erie cut for themselves deep 

 channels through the yielding shale 

 and form ravines from fifty to two 

 hundred feet deep. Down the sides 

 of these ravines and into the narrow 

 intervale crowd tlie chestnut oaks, 

 until the lowest stands at the water's edge, its 'pendulous 

 branches bending over the stream. 



The leaves are obovate to oblong, with rounded teeth and 



340 



