140 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
we are speaking, were planted on many hills, which now bear 
nothing but stunted cedars, they would meet with the soil they 
want, and would flourish exceedingly well. 
Sp. 7. Tse Lirtie Cumcarin Osx. Quercus chinquapin. 
Michaux. 
Leaves and fruit figured in Michaux; Sylva, Plate 11. 
This is much the smallest of the oak family which occurs in 
New England, seldom rising above five feet, and usually only two 
orthree. It is found, scattered in almost every part of the State. 
On Martha’s Vineyard, it occupies, in some instances, many 
acres together, to the exclusion of almost every thing else. It 
is also abundant in some parts of Middlesex County. I have 
found it and the bear oak, chiefly, but not exclusively, on sterile 
soil. It produces great quantities of acorns, which seem to be 
devoured with avidity by wild animals, and also by cattle and 
swine. 
The recent shoots are of an olive or bronze green, smooth 
and shining, channelled, and dotted with small orange or yellow 
dots. The larger branches are of a light, shining, ashen gray ; 
the stem dark, almost black, clouded often with light patches of 
membranaceous lichens. The fruit is borne on footstalks of 
half an inch in length, from the axils of the leaves about the 
middle of the recent shoots. The cup is often set with several 
abortive acorns, which fall off when about one-fourth of an inch 
long. ‘The leaves are obovate, tapering gradually to a petiole 
one-half to one inch long; they are obtusely pointed, sometimes 
nearly entire and sinuate on the border, usually with four to 
eight large teeth on each side, which terminate in a blunt, 
brownish, callous point; margin slightly revolute ; surface light 
green and polished above, whitish or bluish, fine-downy be- 
neath. 
The bitterness of the bark shows that it abounds in tannin; 
and it might, doubtless, be advantageously used by the tanner, 
as the small branches of most of the oaks are in Kurope. 
Where this little oak constitutes the principal growth, it 
might easily be made to perform an important service. If the 
