II. 1. THE SCARLET OAK. 145 
is Straight, rather rapidly, but not abruptly diminishing. The 
bark on small trees is of a reddish granite color, rough, with 
numerous short clefts; on older trees the bark has a bluish 
tinge, whereby it may be distinguished from that of the black 
oak. ‘The recent branchlets are of a light purplish green, very 
smooth, older ones darker, purplish green; larger branches 
erayish. 
The flowers appear in May; the sterile on a slender green 
thread, two or three inches long, set with a few scattered hairs. 
The perianth is brown, on a very short footstalk, single, deeply 
divided into four to six jagged, unequal, fringed lobes. The 
stamens are five, (four to six,) on filaments longer than the 
perianth, and a little hairy above and below. 
The acorn is small, of a lengthened globose form, in a deep 
cup considerably prolonged at base, the upper edge of which is 
very abrupt, and the scales rather large, not free, but usually 
close at the edge of the cup, and hairy on the side edges. ‘The 
kernel is white, and less bitter than that of the black oak. 
The leaves are on long, slender, smooth petioles, irregular in 
shape, but oblong or roundish in the general outline, very deeply 
sinuate, with about three broad. rounded sinuosities; lobes long, 
acute-angled, or with their sides nearly parallel, endmg in a 
bristle; thin and very smooth, and polished on both surfaces, 
except that they sometimes have a slight pubescence at the 
angles of the veins beneath. The leaves are commonly ine- 
quilateral and obtuse at base, though sometimes acute, and end 
in an oblong, narrow lobe, partially divided into three parts. 
This tree may be usually distinguished from the black oak, at 
a little distance, by its more deeply cut foliage, and consequently 
lighter appearance, and also by the brighter and lighter hue of 
the leaves, and the brilliancy of the points of reflected sunlight. 
Yet, from the general similarity of the two, and the numerous 
varieties of each species, an inexperienced observer is very apt 
to imagine that he finds both, in a forest made up exclusively 
of either; and it must be admitted, that they often approach so 
near each other in character, that it is exceedingly difficult to 
distinguish them without cutting into the bark, except after 
the change in the color of the foliage, which takes place in 
20 
