A tree, often 70°—80° and occasionally 150° high, with a trunk 3°—4° in diameter, slender branches spreading gradually into a narrow open head, stout branchlets coated at first with pale or fulvous scurfy tomentum, becoming in their first winter glabrous, dull red or reddish brown, growing dark brown in their second year or brown slightly tinged with red. Winter-buds ovoid, strongly angled, gradually narrowed and obtuse at apex, hoary-tomentose, ¼′—½′ long. Bark of young stems and branches smooth, dark brown, deep orange color internally, becoming ¾′—1½′ thick on old trunks, and deeply divided into broad rounded ridges broken on the surface into thick dark brown or nearly black closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, coarse-grained, bright brown tinged with red, with thin lighter colored sapwood; of little value except as fuel. The bark abounds in tannic acid and is largely used in tanning, as a yellow dye, and in medicine. Distribution. Dry gravelly uplands and ridges; coast of southern Maine to northern Vermont, southern and western Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan, northwestern, eastern and southern Iowa, and southeastern Nebraska, and southward to western Florida, southern Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, eastern Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas to the valley of the Brazos River; one of the commonest Oaks on the gravelly drift of southern New England and the middle states; ascending on the southern Appalachian Mountains to altitudes of about 4000°, and often forming a large part of the forest growth on their foothills; abundant in all parts of the Mississippi basin, and of its largest size in the valley of the lower Ohio River; the common species of the Black Oak group reaching the south-Atlantic and Gulf Coast, and here generally scattered on dry ridges through the maritime Pine belt. _Quercus velutina_, which is more variable in the form of its leaves than the other North American Black Oaks, is easily recognized by the bright yellow color of the inner bark, in early spring by the deep red color of the unfolding leaves, becoming pale and silvery in a few days, and by the large tomentose winter-buds. From western Missouri to northwestern Arkansas a form occurs (var. _missouriensis_ Sarg.) with the mature leaves covered above with fascicled hairs, and coated below and on the petioles and summer branchlets with rusty pubescence, and with broader more loosely imbricated hoary-tomentose cup-scales. 9. Quercus Kelloggii Newb. Black Oak. _Quercus californica_ Coop. [Illustration: Fig. 231]