Quercus Leana ; A Hybrid Oak. 



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in diameter. The leaves are oblong or lanceolate, entire, quite 

 acute at both ends, dark green above, and gray and tomentulose 

 ventrally. The Mowers open when the leaves are about one-third 

 grown (mid-April 1 ; the staminate being borne in the axils of 

 linear-lanceolate bracts on hoary aments 5 to 7cm. long. 

 The calyx is divided into four yellow, pubescent segments. 

 The stamens are usually four, the anthers being emarginate 

 and yellow and quite glabrous. The pistillate flowers are borne 

 on slender tomentose peduncles, the involucrate scales of which 

 are pubescent and about half as long as the acute calyx lobes. 

 The short, yellow stigmas are reflexed. The fruit is usually 

 broad, full and rounded at apex, but narrowing at the base. 

 It is chestnut-brown, 1 1-2 to 3 cm. long, enclosed for 1-3 to 

 1-2 its length in a thin cup-shaped cup. The acute cup-scales 

 are pubescent on their surface. 



Quercus velutina, Lam. (0. tinctoria, Michx.), Black Oak, 

 Yellow Bark Oak.— A forest tree from 60 to 80 feet (occasionally 

 150 feet) high, with a trunk three to four feet in diameter. The 

 leaves are obovate or oblong, rounded, mostly 7-lobed and 

 occasionally divided nearly to the middle by wide sinuses into 

 narrow, obovate lobes, or into nearly entire lobes. The young 

 leaves are bright crimson, the mature leaves are dark green and 

 lustrous above, thick and firm, with a yellow-green, brown or 

 dull copper below. The fruit is solitary or in pairs; the nut 

 being ovate-oblong, obovate, or hemispherical, broad and 

 rounded at the base, full and rounded at apex, and is red-brown 

 in color. The shell is often striated, and the cup encloses a 

 half of the length. The cup is thin and deeply turbinate. 



Quercus Leana, Xutt. (1842), (Q. imbncaria, Michx. x 

 Q. velutina, Lam.) (0. imbricaria, Michx. x 0. coccinea, Engle- 

 mann, 1877).— Lea Oak. — This hybrid oak was discovered by 

 Thomas Cx. Lea, in Clifton, a suburb of Cincinnati, in the late 

 thirties. The specimen is today in a very healthy condition, 

 measuring 75 or 80 feet in height, and having a diameter of more 

 than three feet. From a distance it resembles the white oak 

 in general contour. This hybrid has been found in solitary 

 specimens in widely separated localities, ranging from the Dis- 

 trict of Columbia to Tennessee, Missouri, and to Michigan. 



The winter buds are acute, puberulous, and about 1 cm. 

 long (Fig. 2). The leaves are convolute in the bud, oblong- 



