cup-shaped, puberulous on the inner surface, covered with small closely appressed ovate acute red-brown pubescent scales slightly thickened on the back toward the base of the cup, with a thin dark-colored tip and margins. A tree usually not more than 60°—70° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, often much smaller, stout branches forming a narrow head, and slender lustrous branchlets light green and covered with pale scurfy pubescence when they first appear, dark red during their first winter and ultimately dark brown. Winter-buds ovoid, gradually narrowed to the acute apex, about ¼′ long, with thin ovate acute light chestnut-brown scales. Bark on young stems and on the upper part of the limbs of old trees 1′—1½′ thick, dark brown tinged with red and divided into small thick appressed plates scaly on the surface. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close-grained, light reddish brown, with thin lighter-colored sapwood; used in construction, for the interior finish of houses, and in furniture. Distribution. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, through Quebec to southern Ontario, and southward to northern New England, western New York, northern Pennsylvania (Presque Isle, Erie County), northern Michigan, southeastern Wisconsin, central Minnesota, central Iowa (Winneshick County), and on the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina at altitudes of about 4000°. Passing with many intermediate forms differing in the size of the nut and in the depth of the cup into Quercus borealis var. maxima Ashe. Red Oak. _Quercus rubra_ Du Roi, not L. [Illustration: Fig. 222] Fruit solitary or in pairs, sessile or short-stalked; nut ovoid to slightly obovoid, gradually narrowed and rounded at apex, slightly narrowed at base, usually 1′—1¼′ long and ½′—⅔′ thick, occasionally not more than ⅔′ long and thick, inclosed only at the base in a thick saucer-shaped cup. A tree, usually 70°—80°, or occasionally 150° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, and stout spreading and ascending branches forming a broad head. Distribution. Province of Quebec in the neighborhood of Montreal, and southern Ontario, westward through southern Michigan to southeastern Nebraska, and southward to northern Georgia, on the southern Appalachian Mountains up to altitudes of 3000°, southern Kentucky, eastern and central Tennessee, northeastern (Tishomingo County), northwestern (Yazoo County), and central and southern (Hinds and Union Counties) Mississippi, northern and southwestern Alabama (Dekalb, Cullman, Jefferson, and Dallas Counties), northwestern Arkansas, and eastern Kansas and Oklahoma; one of the largest and most generally distributed trees of the northern states; rare and local in the south; of its largest size in the region north of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers. Often planted as a park and shade tree in the northeastern states and in the counties of western and northern Europe; generally more successful in Europe than other American Oaks.