II. 1. THE POST OR ROUGH OAK. 133 
It has not previously been known to occur in Massachusetts. 
Michaux found it most abundant in Kentucky, Tennessee, and 
on the Missouri. 
It is called pin oak, in Stockbridge and Sheffield, from its use 
in making wooden pins or treenails, for which purpose it is pre- 
ferred to every other material. The wood of this oak is very 
solid and stiff, and approaches, in durability, that of the white 
oak. It is said to be less elastic and tough than white oak, but 
more solid and smoother-grained. It is used for the axles, 
reaches, bolsters, and braces of wagons; for framing timbers, 
for sills and for floors; and for all the other purposes for which 
the best oak wood is employed. As fuel, it is preferred to 
white oak. 
The beauty of this tree, the abundance and luxuriance of its 
foliage, and the extraordinary size of its acorns, recommend 
it to the landscape gardener; the value of its wood, to the 
forester. 
Sp. 3. Post Oak on Roven Oax. Quercus stellata. Willdenow. 
Q. obtusiloba. Michaux. 
Leaves and fruit figured in Michaux; Sylva, Plate 5; in Abbot’s Insects of 
Georgia, I, Plate 47, and IJ, 77; also on Plate 3, of this volume. 
I have found this oak nowhere in Massachusetts, except on 
the Elizabeth Islands, where, particularly on Martha’s Vine- 
yard, it is very abundant, and is called the rough oak, from 
the roughness of its leaves. It resembles the white oak, but is 
distinguished at once by its mode of branching, by the density 
of its foliage, and by the stiffness and peculiar form of its rough 
leaves. It there grows rarely above twenty-five or thirty feet 
high, and eighteen or twenty inches in diameter. ‘The trunk is 
covered by a rough, hard, grayish-white bark, broken by deep 
crevices into oblong portions, usually scattered with whitish 
and black lichens. The branches are numerous, low, at right 
angles, and very crooked, and being crowded near the base, give 
the appearance of the top of a tree whose trunk is under ground. 
The shootsof this year’s growth are long and covered with a 
whitish and downy bark ‘The leaf-stalks very short. ‘The 
