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, yellow, primary 
veins conspicuous. In autumn they turn a dull yellow soon chang- 
ing into a yellow brown. Petioles stout or slender, short. Stipules 
linear to lanceolate, caducous. 
Flowers. —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. 
Acornus.—Annual, singly or in pairs; nut oval, rounded or acute 
at apex, 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. prénus, and the Yellow Oak, Q. acu- 
minata, have many characters in common. The extreme 
typical forms of each differ, but they vary 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 but it loves wet situa- 
tions as well. The little streams of 
northern Ohio which make their way 
into Lake Erie cut for themselves deep 
channels through the yielding shale 
and form ravines from fifty to two 
Chestnut Oak, Quercus pr? hundred feet deep. Down the sides 
nus. Acorns 14/7 to 134” 
jong: of these ravines and into the narrow 
intervale crowd the 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 
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