166 FAMILIAR TREES AND THEIR LEAVES. 



ish nut barely half an inch in length. This oak is 

 common on the borders of swamps and in low lands 

 from Connecticut westward to Missouri, and south- 

 ward to the Potomac Eiver, "Virginia ; it also extends 

 from central Kentucky to the eastern parts of Indian 

 Territory. It is rare and small in New England, and 

 reaches its finest development in the valley of the 

 lower Ohio Eiver. It grows 70 or 80 and in thick 

 forests occasionally 120 feet high. The bark is light 

 gray-brown, smoothish, and has small scales. The 

 wood is reddish and coarse-grained. The pin oak gets 

 its name from the pinlike appearance of the tiny 

 branchlets which are set in the limbs and trunk. I 

 know of no beautiful specimens of this tree in New 

 England, excepting two comparatively youthful ones 

 in the Arnold Arboretum, near the residence of Mr. 

 Jackson Dawson ; but in Flushing, L. I., in Fair- 

 mount Park, Philadelphia,* and in Prospect Park, 

 Brooklyn,f there are quite a number of handsome 

 and symmetrical large trees, which can not fail to 

 attract attention. 



* In this park there is an avenue of beautiful pin oaks which, 

 although they were planted as late as 1881, have already attained 

 symmetrical proportions and an average height of 30 feet. The 

 trunks are about a foot in diameter now, but when the trees were 

 planted they measured about an inch and a half. 



f Prospect Park is particularly fortunate in the possession of 

 many splendid large trees. In this respect it excels Central Park, 

 New York. 



