quercus

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A genus of dicotyledonous trees, the oaks, type of apetalous order Cupuliferæ and of the tribe Quercineæ. It is characterized by usually slender and pendulous or erect staminate catkins, the stamens and calyx-lobes of each flower being six in number, and by the scattered or clustered fertile flowers, composed of an ovary commonly with three cells, six ovules, and a three-lobed stigma, surrounded by an involucre of more or less consolidated scales, which becomes a hardened cupule or cup around the flat or rounded base of the nut or acorn. There are about 300 species, natives of all north temperate regions, extending through Mexican mountains and the Andes into the United States of Colombia, and in the mountains of Asia to the Moluccas. They are entirely absent in South America beyond the equator, in Australasia and the Pacific islands, and in Africa outside of the Mediterranean legion. They are mainly trees of large size, hard and durable wood, and slow growth, sprouting repeatedly from the root; a few only are never more than shrubs. The characteristic oak-leaf is alternate, thin, and veiny, deeply and pinnately lobed, with the lobes either rounded, as in the white oak, or ending in bristle-points, as in the black and red oaks; but the genus includes great diversity of form, ranging to thick and entire evergreen leaves in the live-oak and others. (See cut under oak.) The fruit or acorn matures in one year in the white oak, bur-oak, post-oak, live-oak, and the chestnut-oaks; in other Atlantic species, the biennial-fruited oaks, in two. The yellowish catkins precede or accompany the leaves. The numerous American and European species all belong (with the exception of Q. densiflora, the peach-oak of California) to the subgenus Lepidobalanus (Endlicher, 1844), with slender and loose-flowered proper aments, and broad cupules with imbricated scales. Of these over 50 are found in Mexico and Central America, and about 40 within the United States, 25 of which occur only east of the Rocky Mountains, and about 15 in California. They extend in North America as far north as 45°, in Europe to 56°. The oaks of central and eastern Asia constitute five other sections, mostly with erect staminate spikes, and include about 106 species. See oak, acorn, black-jack, blue-jack, encino, holm-oak, kermes-oak, live-oak, pin-oak, pod-oak, red-oak, roble, scrub-oak, shingle-oak, valonia-oak, wainscot-oak, water-oak, willow-oak.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of trees constituted by the oak. See oak.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. oaks.