128 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
are perfectly and beautifully regular. ‘These differences mark 
varieties which, when trees come to be as highly valued and as 
carefully studied here, as they are in England, will receive names. 
I have met with many of these varieties which would be worth 
cultivating for their peculiar beauty. In autumn, the leaves 
turn to a pleasant purple or violet color, very different from 
that of most other leaves. Many of these remain on through 
the winter, making in this tree the nearest approach to the 
evergreen oaks of warmer climates. The buds are small, short, 
rounded, and invested with several indistinct scales. The male 
flowers are on a long and very slender thread, each cup con- 
taining from four to seven stamens. 
The acorns vary much in size and sweetness, and somewhat 
in shape. They are usually about an inch long, ovoid, oblong, 
in a shallow, somewhat flattened, hemispherical cup, of a gray- 
ish color, rough externally, with roundish tubercles. They 
srow single or in pairs, on a footstalk, from half an inch to an 
inch long, fixed to the years’ shoots. 
The fruit is seldom abundant, not oftener, it 1s commonly 
thought, than once in seven years; and I have looked through an 
extensive forest of white oaks, at the season when the fruit was 
to be expected, without finding an acorn. The fruit is eagerly 
sought for by many wild animals, and is not unpleasant to the 
taste, especially when roasted. 
Michaux says, that he found the white oak as far north as 
the latitude of 46° 20’; as far south as latitude 28° 11’, and 
towards the west to the country of the Illinois. We know that 
it extends much farther to the west. He thinks it more multi- 
plied in the western parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania than in 
any other parts of the United States. Mr. Douglas considers 
Lake Winipeg its northern mit, and says, that it attains there 
a height of ten to twenty feet. 
It is found in every part of this State, although very rarely in 
the western, where its place is taken by the rock maple, and most 
abundantly, and of the largest size, in Essex County. It grows 
well on a great variety of soils, but best on a moderately high, 
moist, loamy soul, particularly in sheltered situations, as on the 
southern sides of hills. No tree is more affected by the wind 
