A tree, usually 20°—30°, or occasionally 50°—60° high, with a trunk rarely exceeding 2° in diameter, stout spreading more or less contorted branches forming a broad or narrow open irregular generally round-topped head, and stout branchlets coated at first with fascicled hairs, nearly glabrous and deep red when the leaves are half grown, dark red in their first winter, gradually growing dark brown; generally much smaller and sometimes shrubby. Winter-buds elongated, acute, ½′ long, with light chestnut-brown scales erose on the thin margins, and coated, especially toward the point of the bud, with rusty pubescence. Bark ½′—1′ thick, red internally, dark gray tinged with red on the surface, and at the base of old trunks becoming nearly black, deeply and irregularly furrowed and broken into small appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, rather close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely used for fuel. Distribution. Dry barren sandy ridges and sandy bluffs and hummocks in the neighborhood of the coast; southeastern Virginia (near Zuni, Isle of Wight County) to the shores of Indian River and Peace Creek, Florida, and westward to eastern Louisiana; comparatively rare toward the western limits of its range, and most abundant and of its largest size on the high bluff-like shores of bays and estuaries in South Carolina and Georgia; the prevailing tree with _Quercus cinerea_ in the flat woods of the interior of the Florida peninsula as far south as the sandy ridges in the neighborhood of Lake Istokpoga, De Soto County. × _Quercus Mellichampii_ Trel. believed to be a hybrid of _Quercus Catesbæi_ and _Q. laurifolia_ occurs at Bluffton on the coast of South Carolina, in the neighborhood of Orlando, Orange County and near San Mateo, Putnam County, Florida. × _Quercus Ashei_ Trel. believed to be a hybrid of _Quercus Catesbæi_ with _Q. cinerea_ occurs at Folkston and near Trader’s Hill, Charlton County and St. Mary’s, Camden County, Georgia. × _Quercus blufftonensis_ Trel., a probable hybrid of _Quercus Catesbæi_ and _Q. rubra_ L., has been found at Bluffton, South Carolina. × _Quercus Walteriana_ Ashe, believed to be a hybrid of _Quercus Catesbæi_ and _Q. nigra_, is not rare in the immediate neighborhood of the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, and occurs on sand hills in Sampson County, North Carolina, near Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, at Mount Vernon, Mobile County and in the neighborhood of Selma, Dallas County, Alabama. 11. Quercus ilicifolia Wang. Bear Oak. Scrub Oak. _Quercus nana_ Sarg. [Illustration: Fig. 233]