[Illustration: PLATE XXXIX.--Quercus macrocarpa.] 1. Winter buds. 2. Flowering branch. 3. Sterile flower, back view. 4. Sterile flower, front view. 5. Fertile flowers. 6. Fruiting branch. =Quercus bicolor, Willd.= _Quercus platanoides, Sudw._ SWAMP WHITE OAK. =Habitat and Range.=--In deep, rich soil; low, moist, fertile grounds, bordering swamps and along streams. Quebec to Ontario, where it is known as the blue oak. Maine,--York county; New Hampshire,--Merrimac valley as far as the mouth of the Souhegan, and probably throughout Rockingham county; Vermont,--low grounds about Lake Champlain; Massachusetts,--frequent in the western and central sections, common eastward; Rhode Island and Connecticut,--common. South to Delaware and along the mountains to northern Georgia; west to Minnesota, Iowa, east Kansas, and Arkansas. =Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, 40-60 feet high, with a trunk diameter of 2-3 feet; attaining southward of the Great Lakes and in the Ohio basin much greater dimensions; roughest of all the oaks, except the bur oak, in general aspect; trunk erect, continuous, in young trees often beset at point of branching with down-growing, scraggly branchlets, surmounted by a rather regular pyramidal head, the lower branches horizontal or declining, often descending to the ground, with a short, stiff, abundant, and bushy spray; smaller twigs ridgy, widening beneath buds; foliage a dark shining green; heads of large trees less regular, rather open, with a general resemblance to the head of the white oak, but narrower at the base, with less contorted limbs. =Bark.=--Bark of trunk and larger branches thick, dark grayish-brown, longitudinally striate, with flaky scales; bark of young stems, branches, and branchlets darker, separating in loose scales which curl back, giving the tree its shaggy aspect; season's shoots yellowish-green. =Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds brown, roundish-ovate, obtuse. Leaves simple, alternate, 3-8 inches long, 2-4 wide, downy on both sides when unfolding, at maturity thick and firm, smooth and dark shining green above, slightly to conspicuously whitish-downy beneath, in autumn brownish-yellow; obovate, coarsely and deeply crenate or obtusely shallow-lobed, when opening sometimes pointed and tapering to a wedge-shaped base, often constricted near the center; leafstalk short; stipules linear, soon falling. =Inflorescence.=--May. Sterile catkins 2-3 inches long, thread hairy; calyx deeply 3-7-parted, pale yellow, hairy; stamens 5-8; anthers yellow, glabrous: pistillate flowers tomentose, on rather long, hairy peduncles; stigmas red. =Fruit.=--Variable, on stems 1-3 inches long, maturing the first season, single or frequently in twos: cup rounded, rather thin, deep, rough to mossy, often with fringed margins: acorn about 1 inch long, oblong-ovoid, more or less tapering: meat sweet, edible.