198 
POPULAR FLORA. 
85. OAK FAMILY. Order CUPULIFER^. 
Trees or shrubs, with alternate and simple straight-veined leaves, deciduous stipules, and 
monoecious flowers ; the sterile flowers in slender catkins (or in head-like clusters in the 
Beech) ; the fertile flowers surrounded with an involucre which forms a cup, bur, or bag 
around the nut. 
Fertile flowers scattered, or 2 or 3 together, their 
Involucre one-flowered, of many little scales, forming a cup around the base of the 
hard and roundish nut or acorn (Fig. 205), ( Quercus ) Oak. 
Involucre containing 2 or 3 flowers, becoming a very prickly and closed bur enclos- 
ing the nuts, and splitting into 4 thick pieces. 
Nuts 1 to 3, roundish or flattish, thin-shelled. Sterile catkins long, ( Castanea) Chestnut. 
Nuts 2, sharply 3-angled. Sterile catkins like a head-like cluster, ( Facjus ) Beech. 
Involucre a leafy cup, lobed or torn at the end, longer than the bony nut, ( Corylus ) Hazel. 
Fertile flowers also collected in a kind of catkin. Nut small like an akene. 
Involucre an open 3-lobed leaf, 2-flowered, ( Carpinus) Hornbeam. 
Involucre a closed bladdery bag, one-flowered, the whole catkin making a fruit like 
a hop in general appearance, ( Ostrya) Hop-Hornbeam. 
Oak* Quercus. 
* Acorn ripening the first year, therefore borne on shoots of the season : cups stalked, except in 
No. 2 : kernel generally sweet-tasted. 
1. Overcup or Bur Oak. Leaves obovate, sinuate-pinnatifid, whitish-downy beneath; acorn l 1 or 
Ip long, in a deep cup with a mossy-fringed border. Q. macrocarpa . 
2. Post Oak. Leaves oblong, pale and rough above, grayish-downy beneath, pinnatifid, with 5 to 7 
blunt lobes ; cup saucer-shaped, much shorter than the acorn. Small tree. Q. obtusiloba. 
3. White Oak. Leaves smooth when full grown, pale beneath, pinnatifid; the lobes 5 to 9, oblong or 
linear, entire ; cup much shorter than the oval or oblong acorn. Rich woods. Q. alba. 
4. Swamp Chestnut-Oak. Leaves obovate, whitish-downy beneath, coarsely and bluntly toothed 
or sinuate; cup thick, hemispherical, with stout or pointed scales; acorn oval, 1' long. Q. Prinus . 
5. Yellow Chestnut- Oak. Leaves lance-oblong, or oblong, acute, whitish, but scarcely downy 
beneath, rather sharply and evenly toothed ; cup thin, and acorn smaller than in No. 4. Rich 
woods. Q- Castanea. 
6. Chinquapin Oak. Much like No. 4, but a mere shrub, 2° to 6° high, with a thin cup and a smaller 
acorn. Sandy, barren soil. Q- prindides. 
*• * Acorn ripening in the autumn of the second year; ripe fruit therefore on wood two years old, 
sessile : kernel bitter. 
•i- Leaves entire or nearly so, narrow. 
7. Live Oak. Leaves thick, evergreen, hoary beneath, oblong, small. Sea-coast, S- Q. virens. 
8. Willow Oak. Leaves light green, smooth, lance-linear, tapering, 3' or 4' long. S- & W- Q. Phellos. 
9. Shingle or Laurel Oak. Leaves shining above, rather downy beneath^ lance-oblong, thickish; 
cup saucer-shaped ; acorn globular. Common S. & W. Q. imbricdria. 
