[43] 



loose, pendent catkins. Their calyx is divided and contains five to ten stamens. The 

 female flowers have an involucre consisting of several overlapping scales that form the 

 cupule of the acorn. The ovary is adherent to the calyx; it has three compartments with 

 six seeds contained in three ovules, two of which regularly abort. It becomes a unilocular 

 monospermous nut set into the cupule, forming an acorn as in all the other species of the 

 same genus. 



Several oak trees with distinct names should be thought of as belonging to this 

 same species. For example, the oak with indented leaves, the black oak of Fontainebleau, 

 which has larger acorns and leaves that are downy underneath, the chine a crochets 

 whose fruit is grouped in clusters, and the hillside oak, which grows in dry, rocky areas. 

 It has sessile acorns and leaves that are slightly downy above and velvety underneath. 



USES. The wood of the common oak is used in almost all of our civil construction 

 and no less so in shipbuilding. It's made into beams, rafters, keels for ships, the gates for 

 locks, etc, Duhamel's writings list the many benefits derived from the oak tree and its 

 cultivation. The bark of this species, like that of several others, is used for tanning 

 leather. It's also used medicinally, and it's believed to be one of our best native tonics. 

 Cullen extols the effects of a decoction of the bark for mild swelling of the mucous 

 membranes of the pharynx, and it frequently has slopped the onset of recurrent fevers. 



The oak tree with pedunculate acorns, Quercus pedunculatci, Hoffm., often had 

 been confused with the preceding tree. [Translator's note: Quercus robur and Quercus 

 pedunculate/ now are often described as the same species]. It differs from it in that its 

 acorns are borne on a fairly long peduncle, its leaves are wider at the tip, and the lobes 

 are less deeply indented. Its wood weighs only twenty-four to twenty-five kilograms a 

 cubic foot. In any case, forest rangers call the latter tree gravelin, merrain, or female oak. 

 They've observed that its wood is less knotty 



