(112) 



American Chestnut Castanea dentata 



Most of the chestnut trees in the Hudson Valley are 

 affected by a fungus disease that has failed to yield to the 

 ordinary methods of fighting tree-diseases. If the disease 

 keeps up its present activity, a few years hence will see the 

 practical extinction of one of the largest and most useful trees 

 of North America. In the open it often forms a round- 

 topped tree more than 90 feet across. The trunk is closely 

 invested with a coarse, deeply fissured bark, and is often as 

 much as 10 feet in diameter. The lance-shaped or elliptic 

 leaf-blades are sometimes as long as 8 inches and are 

 furnished with coarse, sharp-pointed marginal teeth. 

 Usually about the Fourth of July the tree is covered with its 

 golden-brown catkins of flowers, making the tree a con- 

 spicuous feature of the landscape. The upper part of most 

 of these catkins is sterile but the lower part of them sub- 

 sequently develop into the well-known chestnut. 



The chestnut is known to grow only east of the Mississippi 

 and from central New York to Georgia. It is, or was, com- 

 mon throughout the Hudson Valley. The wood is of great 

 economic importance and the bark is extensively used in the 

 tanning of leather. (Plate 138.) 



Red Oak QuerciTs rubra 



Although the wood of the red oak is inferior to that of 

 the white, it is largely used for interior decorating. The 

 tree sometimes reaches a height of 130 feet with a trunk 

 diameter of 5 feet. The stout spreading branches give the 

 tree a broad round-topped outline. At first the young twigs 

 are greenish becoming successively reddish and brown. The 

 thin leaf-blades are green both sides, lobed about halfway. 

 to the middle of the blade, and the divisions are always 

 tipped with a strong bristle. As in all oaks the flowers are of 

 two kinds, sterile and fertile. In the red oak the sterile are 

 arranged in catkin-like clusters, and the fertile are usually 

 solitary or in twos. The latter subsequently develop into 

 the well-known acorn. In this oak the acorn is oval but with 



