132 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
Sp. 2. Tue Overcup Wurtz Osx. Q. macrocarpa. Michaux. 
Leaf and fruit figured in Michaux; Sylva, I, Plate 4. Leafand fruit in Plate 
2, of this volume. 
This oak, as it occurs in Massachusetts, is a fine, erect tree, 
of medium height, much and irregularly branched, and clad 
with a most luxuriant foliage. The lower branches are short, 
horizontal, and bushy; the upper ones tending upwards, but 
often bending, at sudden angles, in various directions. The 
aspect of the tree is much like that of the swamp white oak, 
but the branches are free from the loose bark which often de- 
forms that species. ‘The bark on the trunk is of an ashen color, 
intermediate between that of the white oak, and of the swamp 
white oak, less broken than either, with long, superficial ridges 
or scales. ‘The recent shoots are covered with a ycllowish 
brown, somewhat downy, dotted bark, turning gray the second 
year, and soon after becoming rough. 
The leaves are on short footstalks, pear-shaped in their gen- 
eral outline, very deeply and irregularly sinuate-lobed, with 
three, four, or five bays near or below the middle, which ex- 
tend very nearly to the mid-rib; wedge-shaped or rounded 
below, usually much broader and more entire towards the 
extremity. They are smooth and of a dark green above, much 
lighter, cinereous or glaucous, at first downy, finally nearly 
smooth beneath, six or seven inches long and three or four 
wide. 
The buds are small, compressed and conical. The acorns 
are very large, and enclosed for more than half their length, in 
a cup covered with very prominent scales, and bordered by a 
conspicuous fringe of long, flexible threads. Michaux says 
that these threads do not appear when the tree jis in the midst 
of a forest, or when the summers are not very warm. 
This tree is found in Stockbridge, and the towns below it in 
Berkshire County, and in the neighboring county of Dutchess, 
in New York, particularly in Dover, on Ten Mile Creek, a trib- 
utary of the Housatonic. As Mr. Oakes has also found it in 
Vermont, it probably occurs in some of the intermediate towns. 
