OAKS. 
O 
O 
with my plan. They will find for example, quotations from all the authors 
who had previously taken notice of the species he describes, and in the 
plates, leaves of the young plant as well as of the full-grown tree. 
I have described twenty-six American species, which I have divided 
into two sections, according to the term of fructification ; the first com- 
prising ten species that bear fruit every year ; and the second, sixteen, 
of which the fructification is biennial. I have learned by multiplied 
observations that, with the exception of the Live Oak, the wood of the 
first section is of a finer texture, more compact, and consequently more 
durable. 
Linnæus, in the third edition of his Species Plantarum, published in 
1774, described fourteen species of Oak, of which five only are natives 
of the New World. Since that period such additions have been made to 
the list, that the new edition of Willdenow’s Species Plantarum^ pub- 
lished in 1805, contains forty-four American species ; of which sixteen 
were recognized by Messrs. Humboldt and Bonpland in Old Mexico, and 
twenty-six by my father and myself in the United States and the adjacent 
countries. Probably the American series will be still farther augmented by 
discoveries in the western part of Louisiana, and in the interior provinces 
of New Spain, a country 1200 miles in extent, lying between the United 
States and Old Mexico, which no naturalist has explored. 
In America, as we have just observed, are found forty-four species, 
which are all comprised between the 20th and 48th degrees of north lati- 
tude ; on the Old Continent, are enumerated only thirty, which are scat- 
tered on both sides of the equator, beginning at the 60th degree north. 
This sketch is not without utility, and appears naturally in this place ; 
such parallels might perhaps contribute more than is generally thought to 
the progress of botany and agriculture, and they deserve particular atten- 
tion from naturalists travelling in foreign countries. It would be interest- 
ing to possess comparative tables of those plants which are found in the 
higher latitudes of both Continents, and of the trees and shrubs of the 
temperate climates of America with the analogous species found in nearly 
the same latitude in Asia. I have long entertained a wish, which will 
doubtless be shared by all who interest themselves in the science, that 
botanists would go more deeply into the geography of plants. The rapid 
progress of the young Americans who are beginning to devote themselves 
with ardour to the study of Natural History, will soon afford the requisite 
information concerning their own portion of the globe. 
[For a continuation of the subject, and for further interesting particulars 
respecting the oaks, see Nuttall’s Supplement to this work, vol. I. p. 1, et 
seq. Six new species are there figured, with additional information 
regarding several treated of by Michaux. 
