SPANISH OAK. 
45 
common trees in the forests. I have observed that it is less multiplied 
near the mountains, and in the country beyond them. In Delaware, 
Maryland and Virginia, it is known only by the name of Spanish Oak, and 
in the Carolinas and Georgia by that of Red Oak. In an old English 
work which I found in the library of Charleston, it is said to have been 
called Spanish Oak by the first settlers, from the resemblance of its leaves 
to those of the Quercus velani which grows in Spain. Whether this 
etymology i'-' just or not, I am unable to say ; hut it is unknown to the 
inhabitants who have adopted the name. The denomination of Red Oak, 
which is used only in the more Southern States, was probably given it on 
account of the great analogy between its wood and that of the species thus 
called in the Northern and Middle States, where the Spanish Oak is much 
less common than in the South. 
This tree is more than 80 feet in height, and 4 or 5 feet in diameter. Its 
leaves are very different on different individuals ; thus in New Jersey, 
where the tree is only 30 feet high and 4 or 5 inches thick, they are three- 
lobed, except a few on the summit, and not falcated as on the large stocks 
in the Southern States. On young plants, and on the lower branches of 
the most vigorous stocks growing in moist and shaded situations, they are 
also trilobed ; and on the upper limbs they are more acutely laciniated, 
with the sections more arching than those represented in the figure. This 
remarkable difference led my father to describe as a distinct species, under 
the name of Quercus triloba^ the individuals whose foliage had not acquired 
its perfect form. Sometimes on the sprouts of trees that have been felled, 
the leaves are deeply denticulated at right angles to the main rib. One of 
their constant characters is a thick down upon the lower side of the leaf and 
upon the young shoots to which they are attached. 
The acorns are small, round, of a brown color, and contained in slightly 
scaly cups supported by peduncles one or two lines in length. They 
resemble those 'of the Bear Oak, and, like them, preserve for a long time 
the faculty of germination. 
The bark upon the trunk is blackish and deeply furrowed, with a cellular 
tissue of middling thickness. The wood is reddish and coarse grained, 
with empty pores, and all the characteristic properties of the species known 
in commerce by the general name of Red Oak : hence its staves are fit 
only to contain mêlasses, salted provisions and dry goods. I have been 
told that in the West Indies the Red Oak staves from the Southern States, 
where this species abounds, are the most esteemed, from which it seems 
probable that its wood is better than that of the Red, Scarlet and Black 
Oaks that furnish almost all the Red Oak staves from the Northern and 
Middle States ; this superiority, however, is not sufficiently marked to occa- 
sion a difference in the price. 
From its want of durability the Spanish Oak is less esteemed than the 
