288 Next to the Ground 



uncouth water oaks. The water oak has a 

 trick of sending up twin trunks or even tri- 

 ple ones, beset all their length with stubby 

 outstanding branches. Below the tops the 

 branches are mostly dead, like those of the 

 black-jack, only longer and hornier. The 

 trunks are lichen-covered almost to the top. 

 Gray-beard moss also fringes the boughs along 

 their under sides. The moss is not a strang- 

 ling parasite as is the moss of Mississippi 

 swamps, still it rarely flourishes upon oaks 

 in high condition. It may be the water 

 oak's chosen seat, damp fenny ground, is in 

 large part the moss's reason for being. 

 Water oak foliage is finely cut, the leaves 

 thin, very glossy, and of a deep green, but so 

 sparse the tree makes no shade worth the 

 name. It rarely bears acorns, though it 

 blooms profusely and often sets a crop of 

 fruit. About mid-May the acorns blast and 

 drop. So do the galls, which, however, are 

 few. Scattered remnant acorns are long, 

 almost black, deeply cupped, and intensely 

 bitter. As timber the water oak comes close 

 to the post oak — it is hard, heavy, close- 

 grained, lasting, ill to split, and worse to 

 burn, but when you have built a fire of it, 

 you may turn your mind toi other things, 

 secure of half a day's warmth. 



