TI. 1. THE CHESTNUT OAK. 137 
Sp. 5. Tue Carstnut Oax. Quercus castanea. Muhlenberg. 
Leaves and fruit figured in Michaux; Sylva, Plate 10, and in Plate 5, of this 
volume. 
This graceful tree is distinguished from the rock chestnut 
oak, by its narrower leaves, more nearly resembling those of the 
chestnut tree, and having sharper teeth, and by its smaller fruit. 
I have found only a few straggling individuals, and at first 
took them for varieties of the tree last mentioned. I was struck 
with their beauty, but I have been able to learn nothing in regard 
to the peculiar qualities of the wood as fuel, or as timber, or of 
the bark, as it is, wherever found, confounded with the rock 
chestnut oak, and, together with that, known by the name of 
chestnut oak. Several trees of this group are, in all the States 
where they grow, confounded with each other by the common 
people. And the elder Michaux, who viewed them with the 
discrimination of a botanist, and with a wealth of observation 
which could afford not to multiply species, considered them as 
varieties of the one species, Prinus. The younger Michaux 
makes this a distinct species, and points out some striking 
peculiarities. He says that the wood 1s of a very yellow color, 
that 1t grows only in fertile valleys, and that its bark separates 
in sheets, like that of the swamp white oak. The texture of 
the wood also differs in having more numerous, and irregularly 
disposed flakes of silver grain, than in any of the other oaks. 
Whoever has been in the habit of examining many trees and 
varieties of wood, will be willing to admit that these differences 
are not greater than we meet with in trees acknowledged to be 
of the same species. These trees must be raised, side by side, 
from seed, before we can be sure of their essential distinction. 
The younger Michaux considered the banks of the Delaware 
as the northeastern limit of this oak, which he found most 
abundant in some parts of Pennsylvania and ‘Tennessee. I 
have found it growing about Mount Agamenticus, and, farther 
north, on the banks of the Saco River, in York County, Maine. 
In this State, 1 have found it in Lancaster, Sterling, Russell, 
and Middleborough. 
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