The annual rings are often indistinct. The wood is hard, heavy, and strong, and checks badly in seasoning. The medullary rays are broad and conspicuous, the wood dark brown in color, the sapwood lighter. This oak is very high in ash contents, more than one per cent of the dry weight of wood going to ashes when burned. The tree reaches its best development in the lower Mississippi valley, and in eastern Texas. Comparatively few uses for it have been found. Cordwood cutters find it valuable where it abounds in sufficient quantity, and it has been burned for charcoal for iron foundries and blacksmith shops. Small amounts are occasionally found in wood-using factories in Texas, but only when logs with considerable heartwood can be procured. The sap is characterless and seems to be utterly rejected at the factory. Sometimes the rich brown of the heartwood is attractive, but more frequently the wood is ringed and splotched with different colors, not distributed in a way to give any artistic effect. When a satisfactory stick is found, it can be worked into balusters and small spindles which show grain well. It is also worked into broad panels made up of narrow, quarter-sawed strips, which exhibit the dark flecks of the wood to good advantage. TRIDENT OAK (_Quercus tridentata_) is remarkable for its extreme scarcity, and is of no commercial importance. It was formerly found in Missouri--a single tree--which was afterwards destroyed. It occurs in Washtenaw county, Michigan. It appears that no report showing the character of the wood has been made. LEA OAK (_Quercus leana_), which is believed to be a hybrid between yellow oak (_Quercus velutina_) and shingle oak (_Quercus imbricaria_), is interesting but not important. Trees are apt to stand alone, and far apart. They occur from District of Columbia to Missouri, and south to North Carolina. The range is imperfectly known. [Illustration] LAUREL OAK [Illustration: LAUREL OAK] LAUREL OAK (_Quercus Laurifolia_) This representative of the black oak group is found nowhere except in the southeastern states, and only in their borders. It never ranges far inland, but sticks to wet localities and the margins of swamps where its associates are tupelo, southern white cedar, cypress, magnolias, and, near its southern limit, myrtle and other semi-tropical trees and shrubs. It is sometimes utilized as an ornament, but that is not its usual function. It is not a successful competitor as a shade tree with willow oak and water oak.