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LIVE OAK. 
duERcus VIRENS. Q. folUs pevennantibus, coriaceis, ovato-ohlongis, juniorihus 
(lentatis, vetustioribus integris ; cupulâ turbinaiâ, squamulis abbreviaiis ; 
glande oblongâ. 
This species, which is confined to the maritime parts of the Southern 
States, the Floridas and Louisiana, is known only by the name of Live 
Oak. The climate becomes mild enough for its growth near Norfolk in 
Virginia, though it is less multiplied and less vigorous than in a more 
southern latitude. From Norfolk it spreads along the coast for a distance 
of 1500 or 1800 miles, extending beyond the mouth of the Mississippi. 
The sea air seems essential to its existence, for it is rarely found in the 
forests upon the main land, and never more than 15 or 20 miles from the 
shore. 
It is the most abundant, the most fully developed, and of the best qual- 
ity about the bays and creeks, and on the fertile islands, which in great 
numbers lie scattered for several hundred miles along the coast. I particu- 
larly observed it on the islands of St. Simon, Cumberland, Sapelo, etc., 
between the St. John and the St. Mary, in an excursion of 400 or 500 
miles in a canoe, from Cape Canaveral in East Florida to Savannah in 
Georgia. I frequently saw it upon the beach, or half buried in the mova- 
ble sands upon the downs, wFere it had preserved its freshness and vigour, 
though exposed during a long lapse of time to the fury of the wintry tem- 
pest and to the ardour of the summer’s sun. 
The Live Oak is commonly 40 or 45 feet in height, and from one to two 
feet in diameter ; but it is sometimes much larger ; Mr. S. president of 
the Agricultural Society of Charleston, assured me that he had felled a 
trunk, hollowed by age, which was 24 feet in circumference. Like most 
other trees, it has, when insulated, a wide and tufted summit. Its trunk 
is sometimes undivided for 18 or 20 feet, but often ramifies at half this 
height, and at a distance has the appearance of an old Apple Tree or 
Pear Tree. The leaves are oval, coriaceous, of a dark green above and 
whitish beneath ; they persist during several years, and are partially re- 
newed every spring. On trees reared upon plantations, or growing in 
cool soils, they are one half larger, and are often denticulated ; upon stocks 
of two or three years they are commonly very distinctly toothed. 
The acorns are of an elongated oval form, nearly black, and contained 
in shallow, grayish pedunculated cups. The Indians are said to have 
expressed an oil from them to mingle with their food ; perhaps, also, they 
