OAK FAMILY 
Leaves.—Alternate, five to eight inches long, three to six inches 
wide, oblong-obovate, base wedge-shaped or rounded, five-lobed ; 
lowest pair of lobes small, middle pair broad and undulate or lobed, 
terminal lobe itself three-lobed ; midrib broad, yellow, downy, pri- 
mary veins conspicuous. They come out of 
the bua convolute, dark red above, densely 
covered with thick orange brown tomentum ; 
when full grown are thick, leathery, deep 
dark green, with stellate tufts of hairs scat- 
tered over the upper surface, the under sur- 
face covered with pale pubescence. In au- 
tumn they turn dull yellow or brown.  Peti- 
ole stout, flattened, downy. Stipules brown, 
caducous. 
Flowers.—May, when leaves are one-third 
grown. Staminate flowers borne on aments 
three to four inches long, hairy. Calyx 
hairy, yellow ; segments five, ovate, acute, 
Post Oak, Quercus minor. laciniate; anthers yellow, hairy. Pistillate 
Acorns ¥% to 1/ long. flowers sessile or on peduncles; stigmas 
bright red. 
Acorns.—Annual, sessile or stalked. Nuts one-half to one inch 
long, oval or ovoid, reddish brown, sometimes striped with darker 
brown, sometimes pubescent at apex. Cup cup-shaped or turbi- 
nate, rarely saucer-shaped, usually enclosing one-third to one-half 
the nut, reddish brown, tomentose, covered with close free scales. 
The Post Oak loves to grow at the edge of the timber-land, 
sheltered but not crowded by other trees. The bark is nearly 
the color, but appears thicker than that of a White Oak 
of the same age. It has a fine-checked, ‘alligator-skin” 
appearance but is even more regular, the vertical furrows 
being so continuous as to suggest an up and down corru- 
gation ; this feature is a conspicuous characteristic of the 
trunk. 
The tree has a straggling ungraceful habit of growth com- 
pensated by the pleasing arrangement of the leaves; the 
branches do not subdivide freely but put out new shoots all 
along their length, which gives them a close-wreathed appear- 
ance ; and so the foliage is distributed evenly through the tree 
instead of forming acanopy. ‘The leaves are coarse and rough 
on both sides. As to their shape, there seem to be two varie- 
ties of tree ; on one tree the leaves have uniformly the char- 
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