THE CENTRAL AMERICAN SPECIES OF QUERCUS 81 



Includes: Q. candicans Nee (including Q. calophylla Schlecht. and 

 Cham., the type). 



This series is amply distinct in its broad leaves characteristically 

 obovate, aristate-toothed, and short-tomentose beneath, but this dis- 

 tinction is occasionally obscured in a variant of Q. crispipilis var. 

 pannosifolia. 



46. Quercus candicans Nee, Anal. Cienc. Nat. 3: 277. 1801. 



Q. calophylla Schlecht. and Cham., Linnaea 5: 79. 1830. 



Q. chimaltenangensis f. gemmata C. H. Mull., Amer. Midi. 



Nat. 18: 855. 1937 (pro parte— type only). 



Large tree. Twigs 2.5 to usually 4 or 5 mm. thick, coarsely fluted, 

 glabrate or rather persistently short-stellate-tomentose especially in 

 the grooves, dark reddish brown becoming grayish, with numerous 

 rather large light lenticels or these not evident until the second season. 

 Buds 5 or 6 mm. long, 2 or 3 mm. broad, very acute (or only 3 mm. 

 long and broadly ovoid if young), dull brown, the scales ciliate or 

 glabrous; stipules caducous. Leaves deciduous, rather thin but firm 

 and hard, about 10 to usually 15 or even 23 cm. long, 4 to usually 8 or 

 even 14 cm. broad, characteristically obovate to sometimes elliptic- 

 oblong but broadest above the middle, apices acuminate and aristate- 

 tipped or rarely the tip finally rounded, bases cordulate or truncate, 

 undulate-margined to usually coarsely toothed with long aristate tips, 

 the margins very minutely revolute, upper surface glabrate or rather 

 pubescent along the base of the midrib, somewhat shining, lower sur- 

 face persistently and densely short-bufT-tomentose with matted stellate 

 hairs but the midrib and principal veins glabrous; veins 8 to 10 or even 

 14 on each side, branching and anastomosing but ultimately passing 

 into the teeth, somewhat impressed above but raised within the 

 grooves, quite prominent beneath; petioles 15 to 20 or even 40 (rarely 

 only 6) mm. long. 1.5 to 2 mm. thick, glabrate or tomentose with the 

 twigs. Staminate catkins (in Mexican material) 5 to 6 cm. long, vil- 

 lous, loosely flowered, the apiculate anthers somewhat exserted. Pis- 

 tillate catkins 1.5 to 2 cm. long, 2- or 3-flowered. Fruit biennial, 

 solitary or paired on a coarse peduncle 8 to 12 mm. long and 4 to 6 mm. 

 thick with numerous large prominent lenticels; cups 16 to 20 mm. 

 broad, 10 to 12 mm. high, hemispheric or deeper, margins inrolled or 

 not, scales ovate to lanceolate, thin, closely or somewhat loosely ap- 

 pressed, apices rounded, canescent all over except the glabrous and 

 brown regular narrow margins; acorns about 15 to 18 mm. long, 11 to 

 14 mm. broad, ovoid, from silky-puberulent becoming glabrate and 

 light brown, about one-third included. (See pis. 123 and 124.) 



Range: Guatemala (1,500 to 2,000 m.) and mountains of south- 

 central Mexico; type from Tixtla, Mexico (Nee). 



Quercus candicans was described by Nee on the basis of juvenile 

 material from the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. Trelease 

 points out that the type is not representative of the species and that 

 the new forms he proposes bear the same relationship to the t} 7 pe that 

 Q. calophylla bears to one of its juvenile forms. There seems to be no 

 adequate distinction between Q. candicans and Q. calophylla. Q. 

 chimaltenangensis f. gemmata cannot now be maintained distinct 

 from Q. candicans, although its narrow leaves and inrolled cup are 

 suggestive of the chimaltenangana element of the complex here called 



