WHITE OAK 
9 
der the White Oak so rare over three quarters of the United States that 
it is inadequate to supply the local demand, though the country does not 
contain a fourth of the population which it is capable of supporting. 
Among the American oaks, this species bears the greatest analogy to ■ 
the European Oak, especially to the variety called European White Oak, 
Quercias 'pedunciduta^ which it resembles in foliage and in the qualities of 
its v^mod. The American White Oak is 70 or 80 feet high, and 6 or 7 
feet in diameter ; but its proportions vary with the soil and climate.^ The 
leaves are regularly and obliquely divided into oblong, rounded lobes, 
destitute of points; the sections appeared to be the deepest in the most 
humid soils. Soon after their unfolding, they are reddish above and wdiite 
and downy beneath ; when fully grown, they are smooth and of alight 
green on th^ upper surface, and glaucous underneath. In the fall they 
change to a bright violet colour, and form an agreeable contrast with the 
surrounding foliage wdiich has not yet suffered by the frost. 
This is the only oak on which a few of the dried leaves persist till the 
circulation is renewed in the spring. By this peculiarity and by the white- 
ness of the bark, from which it derives its name, it is easily distinguished 
in the winter. The acorns are of an oval form, large, very sweet, con- 
tained in rough, shallow, grayish cups, and borne singly or in pairs, by 
peduncles 8 or 10 lines in length, attached, as in all the species wdth 
annual fructification, to the shoots of the season. 
The fruit ol the White Oak is rarely abundant, and frequently for several 
years in succession a few handsful of acorns could hardly be collected in a 
large forest where the tree is multiplied. Some stocks produce acorns of 
a deep blue colour ; but I have found only two -indications of this variety, 
one a flourishing tree in the garden of Mr. W. Hamilton, [Now, 1850, the 
Woodlands Cemetery] near Philadelphia, and the other in Virginia. 
The trunk is clad in a white bark, variegated frequently wdth large 
black spots. On stocks less than 16 inches in diameter, the epidermis is 
divided into squares ; on old trees, growdng in moist grounds, it is in the 
form of plates laterally attached. The wood is reddish, and very similar 
to that of the European Oak, though lighter and less compact, as may 
be proved by splitting billets of each of the same size ; in the American 
species, the vessels wdiich occupy the intervals of the concentrical circles 
are visibly less replete. But of all the American Oaks which I shall 
describe, this is best and most generally used, being strong, durable, 
and of large dimensions. It is less employed than formerly in build- 
ing only because it is more scarce and costly. 
* [In ornamental planting-, the White Oak should have abundant space around it for expand- 
ing ; under such circumstances it will throw out long limbs and lateral branches of the most 
picturesque beauty.] 
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