Part 15 (2/2)

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds small, ovate, brown, acutish. Leaves simple, alternate, 5-10 inches long, 1-3 inches wide, bright clear green above, paler beneath and smooth on both sides; outline oblong-lanceolate, sharply and coa.r.s.ely serrate; veins straight, terminating in the teeth; apex ac.u.minate; base acute or obtuse; leafstalk short; stipules soon falling.

=Inflorescence.=--June to July. Appearing from the axils of the season's shoots, after the leaves have grown to their full size; sterile catkins numerous, cl.u.s.tered or single, erect or spreading, 4-10 inches long, slender, flowers pale yellowish-green or cream-colored; calyx p.u.b.escent, mostly 6-parted; stamens 15-20; odor offensive when the anthers are discharging their pollen: fertile flowers near the base of the upper sterile catkins or in separate axils, 1-3 in a p.r.i.c.kly involucre; calyx 6-toothed; ovary ovate, styles as many as the cells of the ovary, exserted.

=Fruit.=--Burs round, thick, p.r.i.c.kly, 2-4 inches in diameter, opening by 4 valves: nuts 1-5, dark brown, covered with whitish down at apex, flat on one side when there are several in a cl.u.s.ter, ovate when only one, sweet and edible.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England; prefers fertile, well-drained, gravelly or rocky soil; rather difficult to transplant; usually obtainable in nurseries. Its vigorous and rapid growth, ma.s.sive, broad-spreading head and attractive flowers make it a valuable tree for landscape gardening, but in public places the p.r.i.c.kly burs and edible fruit are a serious disadvantage. Propagated from the seed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE x.x.xVI.--Castanea sativa, var. Americana.]

1. Winter buds.

2. Flowering branch.

3. Sterile flower.

4. Fertile flower.

5. Fruit.

6. Nut.

=QUERCUS.=

Inflorescence appearing with the leaves in spring; sterile catkins from terminal or lateral buds on shoots of the preceding year, bracted, usually several in a cl.u.s.ter, unbranched, long, cylindrical, pendulous; bracts of sterile flowers minute, soon falling; calyx parted or lobed; stamens 3-12, undivided: fertile flowers terminal or axillary upon the new shoots, single or few-cl.u.s.tered, bracted, erect; involucre scaly, becoming the cupule or cup around the lower part of the acorn; ovary 3-celled; stigma 3-lobed.

WHITE OAKS.

Leaves with obtuse or rounded lobes or teeth; cup-scales thickened or k.n.o.bbed at base; stigmas sessile or nearly so; fruit maturing the first year.

BLACK OAKS.

Leaves with pointed or bristle-tipped lobes and teeth; cup-scales flat; stigmas on spreading styles; fruit maturing the second year.

=Quercus alba, L.=

WHITE OAK.

=Habitat and Range.=--Light loams, sandy plains, and gravelly ridges, often const.i.tuting extensive tracts of forest.

Quebec and Ontario.

Maine,--southern sections; New Hamps.h.i.+re,--most abundant eastward; in the Connecticut valley confined to the hills in the immediate vicinity of the river, extending up the tributary streams a short distance and disappearing entirely before reaching the mouth of the Pa.s.sumpsic (W. F.

Flint); Vermont,--common west of the Green mountains, less so in the southern Connecticut valley (_Flora of Vermont_, 1900); Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,--common.

South to the Gulf of Mexico; west to Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas.

=Habit.=--A tree of the first rank, 50-75 feet high and 1-6 feet in diameter above the swell of the roots, exhibiting considerable diversity in general appearance, trunk sometimes dissolving into branches like the American elm, and sometimes continuous to the top. The finest specimens in open land are characterized by a rather short, ma.s.sive trunk, with stout, horizontal, far-reaching limbs, conspicuously gnarled and twisted in old age, forming a wide-spreading, open head of striking grandeur, the diameter at the base of which is sometimes two or three times the height of the tree.

=Bark.=--Trunk and larger branches light ash-gray, sometimes nearly white, broken into long, thin, loose, irregular, soft-looking flakes; in old trees with broad, flat ridges; inner bark light; branchlets ash-gray, mottled; young shoots grayish-green, roughened with minute rounded, raised dots.

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