142 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
diverging, bearing recurved stigmas, issuing from an ovary 
which is surrounded by the fringed points of four to six seg- 
ments of a perianth, all densely covered with down. 
The acorn is small, of a flattened, globose shape, sometimes 
beautifully striped with longitudinal bars of yellow and brown, 
in a very deep cup, of a brilliant orange within, lengthened 
downwards and gradually diminishing. The scales are free 
at their extremities, near the acorn, and waving. ‘The kernel 
is of a yellowish or faint orange color, and very bitter. 
The leaves are borne on long, rather slender, usually downy 
footstalks, inclined to yellowish green. They are inversely 
egg-shaped in their general outline, obtuse and unequal, rarely 
acute at base; on old trees, deeply cut by about three sinuosi- 
ties on each side; on young and vigorous shoots, particularly 
on sprouts from a stump, more nearly entire. The lobes are 
usually broader, and the sinuosities less deep than in the scarlet 
oak. The lobes often enlarge towards the extremities, render- 
ing the sinuses somewhat ovate: the primary and secondary 
veins end commonly in bristles. The surface is often dusty 
with a fine down above, still shining, and sometimes, in old 
leaves, smooth; beneath, downy, when young; smooth, or 
nearly smooth, when old, except at the axils of the veins, which 
are almost always downy. ‘The color is usually much darker 
than that of the leaves of the scarlet oak, and the texture is 
thicker. They are often spread beneath with a ferruginous 
down, accumulated at the axils of the veins.* Late in autumn, 
the leaves become of a rich, yellowish brown, or russet, or rus- 
set-orange. 
There are three pretty distinct varieties of the black oak. 
The first has its leaves full and almost entire, and running 
down along the footstalk; the second has leaves almost exactly 
* Those figured by the elder Michaux are precisely such as can be always found 
on the young, lower, vigorous sprouts of the black oak. Pursh, Nuttall and Beck 
fall into the mistake, while evidently speaking of this same tree, of describing its 
leaves as not deeply lobed. Pursh says, “levissime siauatis.” Now, leaves of this 
shape can always be found. and are characteristic of this tree. But the greater 
part of the leaves, on old trees, are very deeply lobed, almost as much so as those 
of the scarlet oak, and much more than the leaves of the red oak. 
