("9) 



upper edge. This fringe or burr on the cup gives the tree its 

 name and serves to distinguish it from all the other oaks in 

 the Hudson Valley. 



Commercially the tree is very important, its wood being 

 used for a variety of purposes. It occurs from New Bruns- 

 wick along the mountains to Tennessee and westward, where 

 it reaches its greatest development. (Plate 141.) 



Post Oak Quercus stellata 



The post oak reaches its northernmost limit on Staten 

 Island and the adjacent territory in New Jersey and Long 

 Island. It does not attain its full dimensions in this region 

 and never reaches 100 feet in height, a stature credited to it 

 in southern Ohio. The flat-ridged bark is coarse, and 

 grayish-brown in color. 



A peculiarity of its foliage furnishes the reason for the 

 name stellata, meaning star or star-like. The leaves are 

 closely clustered, which, with their deep lobing, give the leaf 

 clusters enough resemblance to a star to make the name 

 appropriate. The divisions of the leaf-blade extend almost 

 to the middle, and a striking feature of the lobing is that the 

 middle lobe is longer than those above and below it. The 

 acorn which is often as long as 1 inch is ovoid in outline, and 

 the nut is usually half enclosed by the woolly cup. 



The wood of the post oak is resistant to rotting agencies 

 when under ground and is much used for work of this nature, 

 and in cooperage. 



White Oak Quercus alba 



From a commercial point of view this is probably the most 

 valuable tree of the American continent. Its wide spread- 

 ing branches and majestic trunk very actively suggest the idea 

 of great architectural strength. The tree is frequently as 

 high as 150 feet, but in the open usually shorter than this and 

 correspondingly more widely spreading. It takes its name 

 from the shallowly fissured light gray or whitish bark. 



The deeply lobed leaf-blades are not bristle-tipped, and as 



