188 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
Sp. 6. Tue Rock Cugestnut Oax. Quercus moniana. Willdenow. 
Figured in Audubon’s Birds, Plate 131; leaves and fruit figured in Abbot’s 
Insects of Georgia, II, Plate 82; in Michaux; Sylva, Plate 9; and in this 
volume, Plate 6. 
This oak is by no means frequent in the State, and where 
found, it is usually confined to small districts on rocky hills. 
It is called sometimes the rock oak, or, more frequently, the 
chestnut oak, and has great resemblance to the chestnut tree in 
its general appearance and mode of growth. I have found large 
forests of it in South Attleboro’, small patches in Middleboro’, 
in Sterling and Lancaster, larger ones in Erving’s Grant, and 
that neighborhood, and detached clumps in various places in 
the hill country, on both sides of Connecticut River. It is found 
in New Hampshire and Vermont, and is abundant on the Alle- 
ghany Mountains. 
I have never found it growing to a large size, but usually 
between one and two feet in diameter, and forty to sixty feet 
high. One in Sterling measured six feet two inches, at three 
feet from the ground. ‘The trunk is covered with a dark, red- 
dish-gray bark, often spotted with whitish lichens. The bark 
is somewhat lighter than that of the chestnut tree, and less 
rough than that of most other oaks, resembling that of the red 
oak, but smoother. The clefts are long, but not deep, and 
near each other, and rather smooth on their sides. The 
branches are not very numerous, making a sharper angle than 
in the oaks above-mentioned ; and the ultimate divisions are very 
small. The bark is very compact. 
The leaves vary considerably in size and shape,—being from 
four to nine inches long, and two to five wide. They are borne 
on very short footstalks, obtuse and often unequal at base, some- 
times broadest at the middle, but more frequently towards the 
extremity, with from six to thirteen large, rounded teeth on each 
side, which often end ina small hard point, the termination of 
the parallel nerves, which are connected by finely reticulated, 
parallel veins; they are of a polished green above, much lighter, 
and, in a young state, downy beneath. 
