DESCRIPTION OP MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
83 ' 
into 3-9 oblong or linear and obtuse, mostly entire lobes. 
Sterile flowers slender, in naked catkins; bracts caducous ; 
calyx 2-8 parted, stamens 6-8. Fertile flowers scattered, con- 
sisting of a 3-celled and 6-ovuled ovary with a 3-lobed stigma, 
enclosed by a scaly bract-like involucre, which becomes an 
indurated cup around the base of the rounded nut or acorn. 
Cup hemispherical, saucer-shaped, tubercled at maturity, 
naked, much shorter than the ovoid or oblong acorn (1' long). 
Fruit maturing the first year. The bark. 
ftuercus rubra, L. Red Oak. Leaves rather thin, turning 
dark red after frost, moderately pinnatifid, the lobes acu- 
minate from a broad base, with a few coarse teeth. Bark of 
trunk dark gray, smoothish. Cup saucer-shaped or flat, with 
a narrow raised border 9-12" diameter, of fine, closely ap- 
pressed scales, sessile on a very short and abrupt, narrow 
stalk or neck, very much shorter than the ovate-oblong or 
elliptical acorn, which is V or less in length. In rich or 
poor soil. Timber coarse and poor. Fi. May. The bark 
is used. 
Quercus coccinea, Wang., var. tinctoria, Gray. Black Oak. 
Quercitron. Leaves with undivided lobes commonly pale 
and somewhat pubescent beneath, turning brownish, orange 
or dull red in autumn. Cup top-shaped, with a conical 
base 7-9" broad; cup-scales large and loosely imbricated, 
yellowish, gray, pubescent, covering half or more of the 
globular-ovoid acorn. FI. April-Mav. With the former. 
The bark. This and the above mature the fruit in the sec- 
ond year. 
Castanea sativa, Mill., var. Americana, Gray. Chestnut. A 
large tree ; leaves oblong-lanceolate, pointed, serrate, with 
coarse pointed teeth, acute at base, when matured smooth 
and green both sides. Sterile flowers, interruptedly clus- 
tered in long and naked cylindrical catkins. Calyx mostly 
6-parted ; stamens 8-20; filaments slender; anthers 2-celled. 
Fertile flowers few, usually three together in an ovoid, 
scaly, prickly involucre ; calyx with 6-lobed border crown- 
ing the 3-7-celled, 6-14-valved ovary; abortive stamens 5— 
